


home stretch

by orphan_account



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Couch Sex, Excessive Social Drinking, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Long-Distance Relationship, Lots of Hills, Lots of Late Nights, Lots of cows, Mild Language, Pining That Isn't Really Pining, Plethora of Overthinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-05 04:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6690658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“You’re divine, Clarke.” She kisses these words into the blonde’s neck, and they would’ve faded into the silence if she wasn’t so damn close.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Tell me something I don’t know,” Clarke chooses to say instead of so are you or I’ve never taken things so slow before or I can’t already love you.<em></em></em>
</p><p>or</p><p>A look at the town that harbors Clarke's biggest secret and biggest love, told how life is lived, in fragments and in memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the goodness fades

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> story goes back and forth in time from when the lovebirds first met and just after they fell apart. enjoy lots

* * *

_now_

Clarke thought that it would get easier to drive away; to watch as the stacks of hay become skyscrapers taller than the roof of her car allows her to see; to  _leave_. It helps that Octavia is always there with her, grabbing her hand and playing with her fingers and singing along to the worst songs on the radio, trying to distract her from the same soft green eyes and the same soft pink smile.

“I thought it would get easier,” Clarke murmurs softly, half to herself, half to the girl next to her as the current station progresses to commercial.

Octavia gives her a fraction of a grin.

“I know.”

She wants to say that it will, eventually, but she knows that it won’t. She knows that the blonde has found something,  _someone_ , that is meant to be in her life, and walking away from what’s meant to be will never get easier.

Clarke knows this too, but she’s glad that Octavia loves her enough to lie.

* * *

 “ _How was the trip?_ ”

Lexa’s sweet voice sounds heavy over the phone, burdened by the distance between her and Clarke, no doubt.

“Long,” and Clarke doesn’t mean to sound annoyed but she doesn’t know what other form to let her sadness manifest into—anger is irrational because  _she’s_ the one who leaves, but then again, Lexa is the one who  _stays_.

She hears a  _clink clink clink_ from the other line and she can imagine Lexa leaning her forearm against the payphone at the center of town, her flannel swaying with the wind, a quarter tightly clenched in her hand and scraping methodically against the rusted surface of the box, ready to insert as many coins as it takes before Clarke tells her that she needs to rest before class.

“ _Driving five hundred miles can do that to you_.”

“You wouldn’t know.”

There’s a sigh on the line, Clarke can practically hear the brunette’s jaw clenching. It’s a stab at her, a jab, a notice that screams  _hey, you should’ve said yes_.

“ _I wouldn’t_ ,” Lexa whispers. It sounds like she knows she should’ve too.

Lexa knows a lot of things—knows that leaving is always better in theory, that Clarke is her only reason to go and her only reason to stay, that it’s hard to follow when she knows she’ll lose her way back. She knows that everything will happen as it should, and she’s miserable now with this stunted conversation and chip on Clarke’s shoulder, but the journey is always miserable when the destination holds so much promise.

She got eager and lit the candle from both sides. Now she waits to see how they’ll meet in the middle.

* * *

   _then_

“Do my frail eyes deceive me? Or is my daughter actually back?”

Clarke rolls her eyes and claims that it’s impossible to be one of the best surgeons in the state with shit vision, her smile making her sunburnt cheeks stretch tightly.

“Raven sent us a text,” she says as she sets her bag down by the front door, moaning when she takes her shoes off—Octavia had suggested that they go a bit out of their way before they go back home for the summer. Their trip was a nomadic one, they slept in the car, they showered sporadically, they hadn’t taken their shoes off for  _days_. Clarke is actually surprised they haven’t become a part of her anatomy by now. “She’s leaving for that internship in two weeks and she wanted to spend some time with us.”

Abby nods with a soft grin, already imagining the other reason why Raven is in such a desperate need to see her daughter.

“Did she mention the new hybrid?”

Clarke snorts. “It was actually the first thing she mentioned,  _then_ she talked about us.”

The older woman chuckles. “You should get washed up and go down to the stand. This may be her best one yet.”

“No chance in hell you’re gonna tell me what it is, huh? To brace myself?” Clarke says with one foot on the steps, her right hand on the bannister of the staircase, her hair dirty and eyes angelic. Abby feels like the mother to this entire town sometimes, but nothing beats this love that she holds for her own flesh and blood.

“Welcome back, honey,” she says instead, shaking her head when her daughter goes up the stairs with a groan.

* * *

Clarke almost lets out a howl of laughter as she stands in front of Raven’s infamous vegetable stand—although on the weekends she sells fruits too, mostly mangoes that Uncle Teddy manages to create from shitty seeds planted in shitty soil.

On the big wooden sign at the top of the stand is the word  _BRUNIONS_.

She doesn’t laugh, however, because single-handedly manning said stand is a disgustingly beautiful brunette that she’s never seen before with a lean body and eyes that smile so her lips don’t have to.

“Ain’t she a looker!” says Old Man Richard as he walks along the sidewalk to the pub. Clarke doesn’t jump like she used to as a child when a random loud voice would interrupt her thoughts; she’s learned since then that this town is filled with people who appreciate a good running commentary.

She approaches the girl tentatively, expecting to see Raven but deciding to introduce herself to this fresh new face. It’s not common to come across someone who wasn’t there to deliver you as a child in Arkadia—pronounced as  _ar-kidy-uh_ by the locals.

“But how did this happen, sweetheart?” an elderly woman by the name of Vera asks softly, clearly confused by this hybrid vegetable, stressing the point that something must have gone terribly wrong. Vera has never understood Raven’s hybrid obsession, and the reason behind this becomes clear when you hear the woman go on a three hour rant about how marriage should be between man and woman.

“Ma’am, I don’t make the produce I just sell it,” the beautiful brunette says with a surprisingly gentle voice. Clarke is close enough now to know that she’ll never get over the green of her eyes. She scans the vegetables to keep from looking like she’s overtly eavesdropping.

She picks up the medium sized bastard of a brussel sprout and onion’s night gone wrong and snorts at Raven’s relentless battle to keep boredom at bay. The girl’s an engineer, a mechanic, she works in the car shop on the edge of town which does surprisingly well—mostly because a lot of locals like to race their cars across the fields and they don’t spot a cow in the night or end up driving into the river, unfortunate but common. More often than not her business comes in the form of terrified family’s not used to driving in the country, always on their way to bigger and brighter cities.

Clarke feels like this whole hybrid endeavor is something Raven keeps doing for the sake of bringing some entertainment to this town; every week is a new conquest, and even the shitty ones bring an excitement to the locals that rivals the joy felt during the annual bonfire.

“This is against God’s word, my dear. I cannot buy from you. I simply cannot,” Vera states with a shake of the head. She does this every week, and even then Raven somehow manages to get the older woman to buy something, a personal feat, she likes to call it.

“Then leave,” the green-eyed brunette says bluntly, a furrow to her brow that shows just how much she doesn’t understand Vera’s insistence to come to the stand to only trash everything that it stands for. Clarke snorts, drawing the attention of both of the women.

She blushes when she catches green eyes looking over her face, even when Vera turns around, green eyes stay locked on Clarke. The blonde looks away from the intense gaze with a pink dusting her cheeks.

Vera finally leaves after another minute of arguing, muttering under her breath about how God would  _never_ stand for this, when Clarke feels a presence in front of her. Across the table of Brunions, with a flannel wrapped around her waist and a white t-shirt tucked into blue jeans, the woman lets her lips twitch once when her green eyes lock onto Clarke’s blue.

“I see you’ve met Vera,” Clarke says with an amused lilt to her voice.

The girl’s hands are tucked into her pockets, her arms lean and hips wide. She’s even more striking up close, with high cheekbones and plump pink lips.

“This is the second time she’s accused me of being the devil,” her voice sounds even softer when it’s directed at Clarke, but the blonde isn’t sure if that’s just the rustle of the wind playing tricks on her.

“Don’t worry, that’s a good thing.”

The girl’s eyebrow quirks up. “And why’s that?”

Clarke lets her weight rest on her left leg as she inspects a Brunion, the girl’s ability to maintain eye contact a bit overwhelming for the blonde.

“Well she’s called me the devil about a dozen times, and I’m the most interesting person this town’s ever coughed up, so... ” she says with a charming smirk and a shrug of her shoulders.

The brunette does nothing but grin and follow Clarke’s slow movements as she picks up two other vegetables.

“What’s your name?” she asks confidently, and it only startles Clarke because she’s never heard that question sound like such a demand before—and not in a condescending  _I deserve to know your name_ type of way, but in a soft tone that Clarke already associates with this woman, more along the lines of  _I’d love nothing more than to know you_.

“Clarke.”

The woman’s eyes widen slightly, and if Clarke wasn’t looking so hard she would’ve missed the action. “ _Griffin_? What an honor.”

The blonde blushes, maintaining eye contact through the reddening of her cheeks.

“I’m gone for five months and I become a household name?”

The brunette is barely able to open her mouth to reply before they’re interrupted by an excited voice.

“Oh boy, her majesty returns; and with spoiled skin, no less!”

Raven appears next to Lexa with a wide smile, her left hand absentmindedly petting some of her beloved Brunions.

“Oh Raven, I would say I’ve missed you, but I’m no liar.”

“Does honesty keep you from sunscreen?” she says as she leans forward to press a finger to Clarke’s cheek, cackling when a yellow print is left behind before it fades to red again.

The blonde swats at her hand with a roll of her eyes. Raven pats the green-eyed girl’s back twice.

“I see you’ve met Lexa, my protégé.”

“It’s nice to put a face to the name, Clarke.” And the way that Lexa pronounces her name, with the emphasis on the  _k_ , sends her stomach on a twirl.

“And what a disappointing face that is,” Raven says offhandedly, ignoring Clarke’s glare expertly as she turns to Lexa. “Anyway, Bell’s looking for you, something about Francis being tipped over by a couple fifteen year olds.”

Lexa says a quick  _motherfuck_ under her breath before casting one last look at Clarke. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”

“Likewise,” Clarke responds with as the brunette turns around and hoists herself effortlessly over the fence that separates the street and the pastureland. When she disappears down a hill, Clarke tears her gaze away to meet Raven’s knowing smirk.

“Shut up.”

* * *

“Shut  _up_.”

“How was being away from me all this time, Better Blake?” Raven says to a disgruntled Octavia, disgruntled only because, well, she’s always a little disgruntled. Clarke has been looking on at them fondly, having missed the trio being together again.

It’s finally the summer, which means that Clarke and Octavia can stay home for almost four months without having to return to Polis, something the both of them had really been looking forward to, especially since they had decided they weren’t going to come back for winter break their first year so they can get in the groove of things. It was arguably the dumbest decision they had ever made, being tormented by their longing for their family and friends when they were bombarded by drunken texts and sloppy pictures on Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Years was pure torture—and that’s not to say that their usual assortment of drunken messages received any other day make them feel any less depraved of familiarity, but Polis was exceptionally cold and exceptionally  _not home_ , so they’d definitely learned their lesson the hard way.

“I really didn’t think of you that much, Rae,” and just by using her nickname, Clarke knows that Octavia missed Raven dearly.

Raven pretends to act offended, sliding her hand down her body and exclaiming, “how can anyone not miss  _this_?”

“How  _can_ anyone?” Murphy responds in his usual drawl, no emotion on his face, but two fresh beers in his palms that he slides over to Octavia and Clarke.

“You pamper me, Murphy. I’m so spoiled,” Octavia says mockingly. The boy only rolls his eyes.

“Glad you midgets are back,” and with that he tends to the rest of his customers.

John’s Pub is the premium drinking destination of Arkadia, standing as the only pub in the city earned its rich status; and it is, despite the many pubs and bars Clarke had frequented near her college, the best pub she’s ever been to. She doesn’t think that any other place could beat the nostalgia and familiarity of a drink in this stool, sitting beside her best friends, sipping on free beer, emphasis on  _free,_ and being able to walk through her hometown a few hours later in a drunken haze before collapsing in her room and counting the dim stars stuck to the roof of her bedroom as she falls asleep.

Anyway, she’s getting ahead of herself.

“Hello, pretty people.”

Bellamy is as handsome and deviant as ever, standing tall with a smirk and the usual gravely voice that has most everyone swooning. He hugs Clarke tightly, given this being their first encounter together after months separated. They hold each other close, Clarke relishing in the way that he holds her. They’ve been close friends since she can remember, and he has always felt more like a brother than anything else, just like Raven and Octavia felt like her twin sisters that looked nothing alike but were still so identical.

“Glad to have you back, princess.”

Clarke nods against his chest and pushes him off when he starts squeezing too tight.

He feigns seriousness when they separate.

“I almost got arrested while you were gone,” he says solemnly, and Clarke knows that it’s not because he almost got arrested, but that he almost got arrested  _without_ her. They’ve had their fair share of close calls and their fair share of overnight slammer visits, and those have been the nights to remember.

“What did you do?”

Bellamy lifts the sleeve of his shirt quickly and bends at the waist so they’re making direct eye contact.

“Was walking around with these unregistered  _guns_.”

And really, what did Clarke expect? He  _had_ been working out excessively this past year due to the absence of his sister—at least, working out more than when they would exercise together, running and lifting and preparing their bodies and minds for something that none of them would ever be ready for.

“You’re such a ranch dorito, oh my god,” Octavia says as he sits beside her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and bringing her close.

“I’m tasty?” He questions before ordering his usual Bud Light, delivered by Murphy with a scowl—though they all know of the bromance that those two have stepped into since Octavia and Clarke went out of town to build up their lives,

Octavia looks at her brother like he’s lost his mind.

“Ranch doritos taste like peppered ass,” Raven clarifies.

“So you’re telling me that, not only have you put your mouth on an ass, but you peppered it before-hand?”

Raven narrows her eyes at him. “Are you kink-shaming me?”

Bellamy waves his hand in the air with disinterest. “All this PC shit is getting old.”

Octavia rolls her eyes for what feels like the millionth time tonight. Clarke sniggers as she sips from her drink.

“Of course you, a ranch dorito, would say that.”

“Your silly names have no effect on me, O.”

Octavia shrugs, twisting her face to look suspiciously angelic.

“Whatever you say, cow-tipper.”

Bellamy turns to her in horror, nearly screeching. He makes a deep affronted noise in the back of his throat that has Raven cackling.

“You take that back!”

And yeah, Clarke really loves being home.

* * *

The next day, after a long morning of reacquainting herself with her hometown, Clarke walks through the front door of her house and takes a deep breath in.

She had missed her town terribly, especially the people, but most of all, she missed the air.

There’s something so fresh about rural lands, something uncontaminated and pure, untouched by urbanization and left to breathe and produce at its own pace.

Now she misses the green eyes that she suddenly catches a glance of from behind the swinging door of her kitchen—and how is it that she can miss what’s right in front of her?

Lexa is across the living room, standing, unmoving, looking at her with a small smile.

“Fancy running into you here,” the brunette says coyly.

“You would be surprised. My home is quite the hotspot,” Clarke replies with wit, and she mentally pats herself on the back for being so quick on her feet after being caught off-guard.

They stand in silence, then, admiring each other.

Abby comes from the kitchen behind Lexa and pauses at the silence, the staring, the smiling. She shakes her head and reminds herself to never mention this to Raven, who would have too much of a good time rubbing it in everyone’s face that she  _knew_ Clarke would fall for Lexa the  _moment_ she laid eyes on her—although, to be fair, Abby reasoned that the first one to fall would be Lexa, but ever the more magical that it is simultaneous.

“I see you two have met.”

“I would hardly call this a meeting,” and, oh, how Abby had missed her daughter’s lack of shame. Lexa’s eyebrows shoot up a smidge before she collects her features, but that brief moment was enough for Clarke, who learned to pick up social cues at the tender age of eight.

Lexa clears her throat and rips her eyes off of the blonde in front of her, choosing instead to have some semblance of professionalism. She looks at Abby as she stuffs her hands into her pockets, a nervous habit that the surgeon has picked up on.

“Anything else you need from me, Ms. Griffin?”

“I’ve told you a million times, Lexa. Call me Abby.”

The girl merely nods, her usual single bob of the head.

“The sink seems to be working great. Thanks again for coming by on such short notice.”

“I’m afraid I had no choice,” Lexa says with a slight smirk, and Abby swats at her arm with a chuckle. The older woman had been around her house in a frenzy ever since she accidentally kicked the pipe beneath her sink for the  _third time_ in two months, and when she saw Lexa crossing her lawn to get to her own home down the street, she decided to drag the girl into her property before the water could ruin any more of her perfect tile.

Clarke watches their interaction with interest, suspicious of her mother for never mentioning Lexa before when it’s clear that she’s been helping Abby around the house since she’s been away.

The blonde finally notices the mud caked around the brunette’s knuckles, the faint dusting of dirt on her cheeks, and the frayed appearance of her clothing and boots.

“Who’s Francis?” she asks suddenly, remembering why the other woman had to leave quickly yesterday.

“Bellamy’s new calf. I’m helping raise him and he’s a big fella, attracts a lot of the highschool kids a county over.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. The children from Azgeda County are a flock of pests.

“Let me guess,” Clarke speaks up again, not realizing that her mother had slipped upstairs moments prior. “Bell tried to name him Themis.”

Lexa snorts, the sound something soft and adorable. It makes Clarke’s belly warm.

“I had to remind him twice that it was already the name of his tractor  _and_ his truck. And if I remember correctly, Themis is the  _daughter_ of Uranus.”

“Gender has never been an obstacle for Bellamy,” Clarke says fondly, her gentle heart not believing that she could coexist with such wonderfully silly people.

“Is it an obstacle for you?”

And, did Clarke believe her heart was gentle? Surely it’s beating too fast at the moment to be considered anything but violent.

Her face is already red from the sun, but she’s sure her neck is keeping up with the shade of her cheeks at this point.

She eyes Lexa with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t let anything stop me from enjoying myself, or enjoying someone else, for that matter”

Lexa nods, a smirk on her lips. “Glad to hear it.”

The blonde cocks her head to the side, her chin jutting out the slightest bit.

“And why’s that?”

The brunette shrugs like the tension in the room isn’t completely suffocating.

“Can’t a girl just be glad, Clarke?”

“Life has taught me that pretty people always have an ulterior motive.”

Lexa’s lip curls like she understands why Clarke chooses to water the cynicism at her roots. She knows a thing or two about betrayal.

“Not all pretty people are the same,” she counters.

Clarke hums, looking over intense green eyes and a sharp jawline that, dare she say it, she wouldn’t mind caressing once or twice or fifty times.

“I hope you’re right.”

* * *

_now_

It’s been a month since they returned to Polis and Octavia knows that Clarke isn’t faring so well.

The blonde is usually elbows-deep in her studies, learning about a new disease or vaccination or some mystery joint that a patient walked in with at the lab of the university, but all she’s had for the past few days is radio silence and an abundance of distaste for it. Clarke doesn’t have to say much, but Octavia knows that the girl is in a funk.

Lexa hasn’t called, and Octavia knows that it isn’t from lack of a good story to tell, because the girl can talk Clarke’s ear off all night about milking a cow and make it sound like jesus himself had resurrected. Besides, Clarke never really cared if Lexa called to simply breath down the line, and in the end that’s what Octavia thought made them so special, their unwavering desire for each other in even the slightest of ways.

When Octavia gets back from class one night to find a dolled up Clarke sitting on the edge of the couch, demanding a night out, the brunette is rightfully stumped.

“You,” Octavia says with a dubious voice, eyebrow raised and hand on her hip, “want to go out?”

Clarke is affronted. “I  _love_ going out.”

“Yeah, on a Friday to a rager in a mansion. Not on a Tuesday to a bar to get drunk for no reason.”

The blonde rolls her eyes as Octavia continues.

“Is this because of Lexa? You know she’s crazy about you, right?”

Octavia has no knowledge of what happened, but she’s sure it’s bad enough for Clarke to believe that Lexa isn’t as crazy about her as the brunette has made clear.

“She’s not here, so how crazy can she be?”

Octavia goes to reply but Clarke beats her to it, surely too tired to fight about the affections of a girl over five hundred miles away.

“Get dressed, okay? We leave in twenty.”

The brunette doesn’t fight it, and how could she?

She has no idea what happened between the two girls back home, but she knows that something changed when Lexa wasn’t there the morning they left to say goodbye. She also knows that the girl hasn’t been calling Clarke as much and that means that the blonde has more time to think before she sleeps and worry herself to the ground. When Clarke is with Lexa it’s like everything slips away, and it seems like everyone can see that except for the girl herself.

So Octavia slides on a pair of black jeans with a red top and goes to a mediocre bar on a Tuesday night because she owes Clarke her life. All things considered, she knows she owes the blonde much, much more than that.

The place is dimly lit, packed with enough people to look just far enough away from sketchy that makes them stay. They sit at the corner of the bar and order their drinks; they talk about their classes, and when that conversation exhausts them, they start talking about the people around them; they attract attention, as attractive women do.

Clarke revels in the attention, drags her fingers up and down the strong arm of a man with shoulder-length hair, leans in to laugh with her whole body like the joke was  _that_ funny--she’s a champion at making people feel desired, and what a gold medal she wears around her neck. Octavia can’t stop her eyes from rolling every other minute.

“Do you go to Polis?” Clarke asks as she bites down on her straw, a grin peeking out from around it. The boy—Finn—is hypnotized.

“Yeah, I study architecture,” he speaks confidently enough, but not too confident to suggest he’s an expert at picking up emotionally vulnerable women at a bar on weeknights.

Clarke continues to work her magic, continues to expel her hurt emotions turned flirtation onto this handsome man, and all Octavia does is listen. Don’t get her wrong, Clarke has flirted with many people over the course of the past few years, but it never seems to lead anywhere. She always has something to study for, or more importantly, someone to talk to; but Lexa is letting their physical distance become emotional, and Clarke has never been real emotionally stable, if Octavia’s being honest. She doesn’t get attached, and the brunette is starting to think that that’s only done more harm than good. She really thought Lexa would change that.

Not for the first time she wonders what happened between them.

Clarke’s phone cuts through the noise of the bar, ringing in her back pocket like there’s an emergency, and Octavia downs her drink when the blonde takes a look at her screen and ignores it with a simple click.

Not for the first time she wonders if Clarke will make it out alive.

* * *

Clarke wakes up the next morning with a pounding in her head and an arm around her waist. She brings her fingers to her cheeks and she’s warm to the touch, but her thoughts are frozen.

She turns in Finn’s arms and manages to trace over his features—his sleek nose, his round chin, his long lashes, his slight stubble.

She decides then and there that she’ll give him a chance—he  _had_ asked her out on a date last night before she decided she needed a little bit more than a good conversation to pass the time—simply because he is here. She’s learned the hard way that it’s hard to be here, it’s hard to demand love from someone who can only give you a summer paradise and a winter wonderland, it’s hard to ask for it all when she won’t ever get a fall or a spring.

It’s hard to love Lexa, so she decides to get over it.

But really, who is she kidding? 

* * *

 Lexa sighs into her glass of beer and Bellamy, being the good friend that he is, shoves her so hard that she almost falls off her stool.

“C’mon, Lexa. What’s got you blue?”

The girl snorts. Bellamy becomes rather… colorful, when drunk.

“It helps to talk about it, y’know. You’re not the only one who loses her every time.”

She clenches her jaw. She wants to talk about the ultimatum, the question, the  _plea_ , but she doesn’t have it in herself to relive the biggest mistake she thinks she’s ever made.

She stays silent as she watches him give it one last try, watches as he keeps his eyes trained on Murphy across the bar, filling up a drunk man’s drink until it overflows onto the bar top.

“Go call her.”

Lexa shakes her head but stands to leave anyway, her eyes trained on the rusted payphone across the street, vacant and glowing beneath the flickering streetlight. She’s sure she’s going to be called about that within the week—one of the only streetlights in the entire town can’t be shitty, they have appearances to uphold, after all. She uses the noise coming from behind her, drunken singing from the bar and muffled shouting from down the street, to push her forward.

She reaches the payphone and feels nauseous suddenly, like she’s lost the right to call Clarke whenever she’s missed. She picks up the phone through her uncertainty, dials the number she’s had memorized for years now, and waits with baited breath as the line starts ringing.

Three rings in Lexa slams the phone onto its holder.

It just doesn’t feel right tonight.

* * *

In the morning, she gets called about the streetlight by Officer Kane, who believes the flickering to be a distraction to people driving through or driving around, and the last thing he wants on his hands is a busted car and unnecessary paperwork filled by people who will never learn their lesson.

She stops by Abby’s house like she does every Wednesday morning, eats breakfast with her and discusses her patients, they discuss Lexa’s job for the day, they discuss how generous Murphy was last night by deciding to keep the bar open an hour longer than usual.

They don’t discuss the beautiful blonde elephant in a room five hundred miles away but still so  _present_.

They don’t discuss the bags under Lexa’s eyes.

They smile over coffee and talk about how the leaves are falling from the trees early this year, and Lexa could’ve talked about the weather forever if given the chance, anything to avoid talking about the reason her heart beats.

Abby, however, was having none of it, so while Lexa talked about the sky, the older woman cut her off with a firm, “ _stop_.”

Lexa sighs, shaking her head before Abby can even begin speaking. The brunette already knows what she has to say.

“Please,” Lexa nearly whispers into the silence of the kitchen.

“I just need some time.” 

* * *

It proves to be easy enough in the days to come.

It’s been a two weeks since Clarke ignored the incoming call from Arkadia, and it’s been two weeks since she’s started going out with Finn every other night, having dinner and drinking over good conversation.

It’s fulfilling, to be out with someone who shows interest, and Clarke doesn’t mind that he’s ridiculously cute and ridiculously well-mannered.

So what if his hair is better than hers? She’s sure she can work around that.

“I just think that we’d be an amazing power couple, that’s all,” he says around a grin, putting his fork down and reaching into his lap to handle the napkin, wiping his mouth as Clarke responds from across the table.

“And why’s that?” She’s being coy—she’s  _always_ coy.

“I’d build the hospital and you’d save lives in it. Isn’t that the dream?”

And sure, it’s  _a_ dream, a good one—but Clarke has dreamt enough about crinkling green eyes and a life of pastureland to distinguish reality from fantasy, and she’s through trying to map out her future before she gets there.

“It takes a couple years to build a hospital, do you think you can stand me saving lives somewhere else in the meantime?”

She’s not used to talking about the future with such nonchalance. With Lexa every thought of the future hit her with such a force that it’d knock the air from her lungs; it all felt too real, as if them talking about their future together automatically put them there, living in their shared house, writing to-do lists for each other and coming home to the same eyes every night. With Finn it’s simple, easy to speak of the distant years because it almost feels like they’ll never reach them, and if they do then they do.

Finn shrugs, a boyish grin on his face and a sparkle in his eye. He really likes Clarke and he hasn’t been shy about that fact. He knows that she’s not completely smitten yet, but she’s giving him attention and letting him take her out and pay for her meals and kiss her goodnight, so he’ll take what he can get at the pace that she gives it. He has time.

“I think I can bare it.”

The night carries on smoothly, as they all do, and maybe it’s a nice change of pace—smooth and simple, a contrast from the sporadic and surprising.

Who needs a life of wonder when they have a life of bliss?

He kisses her outside of her apartment, something sweet and chaste. He smiles into their second kiss when Clarke grabs him by the jaw and makes the chaste something lengthy, something rougher.

He backs away with a smirk—how can you not smirk when Clarke Griffin kisses the life out of you?—and a tender farewell.

She walks into her apartment with a smile, a warmth on her face, and no thoughts in her head. She lays on the couch and flips through the channels on the TV set. She’s caught up on her studies and needs to relax as much as she can before her exam tomorrow, so she flips to the history channel and chuckles when a documentary about the civil war stutters onto her screen.

Bellamy’s influence is interesting, and she decides to call him to see if they can watch this together, because distance has nothing on a movie night.

Three rings in she hears the other line get picked up and she starts talking into the phone without a care, happy to be connected to her town even if it’s through just a voice.

“There are a bunch of men on my television wearing pantaloons, you patriot. Stop whatever you’re doing and watch it with me,” she demands jokingly, knowing it’s not much of a demand when the chances that he’s  _already_ watching it are high.

There’s nothing on the other line for a handful of seconds, but then a hesitant response.

“ _What channel is it on?_ ”

Clarke freezes. It’s not the deep and lumber voice she’s expecting.

“Lexa?”

“ _Hello, Clarke._ ”

“What are you doing with Bellamy’s phone?” and it’s not exactly the question she wants to ask—would rather ask  _how are you?_ or  _what are you wearing?_ or  _do you still love me?_ but not  _did you ever?_ because she doesn’t think she can handle that answer.

“ _He’s, uh, asleep. Had a long day today._ ”

Clarke can hear fumbling on the other line, a shifting of a body, and what a body that is.

“Oh, okay.”

The silence is stunted, as expected, but Clarke’s stomach is swirling and she hasn’t felt like this since the winter.

“ _Do you want me to wake him?_ ”

“No! No, it’s okay. Let him sleep, he deserves it.”

“ _How is school?_ ”

Clarke takes a deep breath. Small talk she can do.

“Still standing, unfortunately.”

“ _I’ll never understand why you decided to go to this place you hate so much._ ”

And some things will never be understood. Some things are only known by the people involved in them.

“We do what we have to in this life.”

“ _And in the next?_ ”

Clarke wants to say that their next life is reserved for their pleasures, for doing whatever they want because the necessities are over and done with, but she’s not a liar. She has no crystal ball, only an hourglass.

“Who knows.”

Lexa hums like she expected more of an answer, and maybe a year ago Clarke would have given it to her, but the past is not the present and she’s learned that the hard way.

“ _I went to Azgeda County the other day to clean some guy’s slaughterhouse_ ,” Lexa says to ease away from the weight of their conversation. She knows Clarke didn’t call to talk to her particularly, but she hasn’t hung up yet. Also, Clarke has been missed, and Lexa’s experiences seem dull when she doesn’t have Clarke to share them with, to add playful noises and colorful commentary. It’s almost like Lexa lives so much, so forcefully, so Clarke doesn’t have to.

“How’d they find out about you all the way over there?”

“ _Word travels fast in the country, as you know,_ ” she responds cheekily. “ _So, this guy—Gustus—is huge, and he’s covered in tattoos and has a beard longer than my hair._ ”

“Wow.”

“ _I know. He broke his ankle and that’s why he couldn’t get up to clean everything himself, and he didn’t want anyone else going to his place because apparently he’s the mystery of the county and it’s his pride and joy, so he got a hold of me through Kane._ ”

“You are pretty meticulous with your cleaning,” Clarke teases, the smile stretching across her lips the lightest she’s felt in weeks.

“ _Yeah, yeah. Get this, he pulls up a crate and sits with me while I scrub the walls. He drinks five beers and tells me his life story._ ”

Clarke shifts on the couch three times—legs under her butt, spread eagle, lying upside down—before she decides that comfort is an absolute necessity and hightails it to her bed.

“Oh, god. Is he wanted for murder? A drug mule? Are the mysteries true?”

“ _Turns out that he had a daughter that looked a lot like me, and when she died he decided to move away from where he’d lived his whole life. He told me that everyone in the county thinks he killed someone, but it feels like he’s the one that’s been dead for years._ ”

“Jesus, Lex. What a bummer.”

“ _I thought so at the time too, but he really drove home the fact that people are gone so quick. It’s like you blink and you miss them_.”

Clarke stays silent. She lets Lexa’s sudden change of tone wash over her, lets her mind ring with that tinge of sadness that coats the words dripping into her ear, falling from distant lips.

“ _He told me that distance only matters when the other person’s gone. That his daughter’s last words were_ ‘ _death is not the end_ ’.”

There’s a loud sigh in her ear, and Clarke is sure she can hear Lexa biting the inside of her cheek.

“ _I_ _guess I just don’t want to wait until I’m dead to be sure of it. If I’m dead I can’t talk to Bellamy, or joke with Raven, or—_ ”

After a minute of silence, Clarke opens her mouth to say something,  _anything_ , but Lexa beats her to it. Clarke really wishes that she hadn’t.

“ _Or hold you._ ”

This could go many ways, she knows. It could be a road to recovery, a step in the right direction, toward the blooming flowers and neon trees that make up all her wildest fantasies; or it could lead her straight back to the hell she had been living a month ago when every call left her breathless, and every word directed at her that wasn’t tumbling from Lexa’s mouth made her numb.

Clarke really isn’t as strong as she lets on. Or maybe she’s just so tired that she has no choice but to let it show.

The admission isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Lexa has whispered time and time again—into her ear, her neck, in between her legs before opening her mouth and, well—that she could die happy in Clarke’s arms; that heaven could never be brighter than her hair; that the sky could never be as blue as her eyes; that the world is the expanse of smooth skin between her chest and stomach. It’s just different to hear these words of worship usually whispered after a passionate night or hazy morning, spoken over the phone, five hundred miles away, no body near to make eyes widen or mouth water.

Clarke can make out memories of Lexa’s wide, green eyes tracing over her with thin sunlight filtering through her bedroom window; can make out the lack of smile on her face, because sometimes realizations are beautiful and happy, but sometimes the most important one’s really shatter. Lexa looked at her like she was the last tree on earth, the last flight available, the only drop of water in a world of desert.

Lexa looked at her and Clarke felt like all she needed was to be looked at and remembered.

But Clarke needs her to forget.

“I have something to tell you,” she croaks, her voice husky, a product of her dry mouth.

Lexa clears her throat over the phone, probably trying to rid herself of the trance she was just in.

“I met someone.”

Clarke expects silence—crickets rattling and forcing their way down her throat. She doesn’t expect Lexa to be so good at pretending.

“ _What are they like?_ ” Lexa asks sternly, her voice strong and devoid of quiver.

“His name’s Finn. He’s really sweet and funny, you’d like him.”

“ _You should definitely bring him around this summer. I’m sure everyone would love to meet him too._ ”

“Yeah, definitely. Definitely.”

There’s noise on the other side of the line.

“ _It’s been really nice talking to you, Clarke, but Raven just walked in and declared that if she doesn’t get wasted tonight she’ll drop dead, so I should probably keep an eye on her._ ”

“Oh. Yeah, of course. Tell Raven to call me sometime. I miss her.”

“ _Will do. Goodnight, Clarke.”_

“Goodnight, Le—” The line stutters and drags on, ended.

Clarke looks down at her phone, stares at the time of their call—a meager forty minutes—and lets her eyes close to take away from the weight of her head.

Lexa could sound as happy as she can muster, can throw Clarke a hundred parties to celebrate her relationship with someone else, can walk Clarke down the aisle at her wedding with a smile so bright that it makes her dresses shade of white bleed black, but she can’t pretend as well as she thinks.

Because in all the years that they’ve stayed up talking, in all the years that they’ve only been connected by their voices floating through plastic and reaching each other from hundreds of miles away, Lexa has never hung up the phone first. 

* * *

“Who was that?” Raven asks as she sits beside Lexa on the couch. Lexa knows the girl deserves to know who she was just used as an excuse on, but Clarke’s name gets lodged in her throat on its way out. She wants nothing more than to expel the learned flick of her tongue that curls around the syllables of that name.

Lexa ignores the question and shakes Bellamy awake on the opposite couch. The boy mumbles for a bit before jerking away with wild eyes.

“What’s going on?”

“Let’s get wasted,” Lexa demands, and to know this girl is to know that it’s a demand she’s never made.

“Wait, what?” He rubs his eyes and focuses on the clenching of her jaw and the worried glance that Raven is sending him over her shoulder. He’s about to open his mouth to deny her request, but Raven sends him a warning look. Lexa knows what they’re doing, trying to protect her before she spirals off the deep end, trying to coddle her in the subtlest way they can, but how can they protect a glass shard separated from its whole? How can they protect her when she’s out for blood?

“C’mon, Bell Boy. You can keep an eye on us; be our DD.”

“I’m not driving us anywhere.”

“Designated Dickhead, then.”

He glares at her, but her unflattering comment disappears from his train of thought when he sees Lexa step out of the kitchen from the corner of his eye, downing a bottle of beer like she’s been doing it her whole life.

“Slow down, Lex. Let me catch up,” Raven says to ease her friend’s nerves. Whatever they’re drinking over must involve Clarke in some way; the blonde seems to be the only person in the world that can evoke this much feeling from Lexa.

Lexa doesn’t stop drinking until she feels like beer is going to start coming out of her ears, and even then she swallows it down a little harder. She doesn’t usually drink more than half of a bottle, but tonight she drinks five, and to her it feels like five hundred—makes her act like she’s had five hundred, too.

When she wakes up in an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar ache in her hands and back, she regrets ever letting her emotions get the best of her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as i wrote i was inspired by:
> 
> drunk by zayn
> 
> goodness pt. 1 by the hotelier
> 
> take me home, country roads by john denver


	2. chewing wildflowers to numb the pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone leaving comments and enjoying this—cowbirth is amazing, okay?  
> 

* * *

_then_

Clarke has been home for four days and she swears that she’s seeing Lexa behind every corner. She’s at the supermarket picking up a couple hammers and tampons—an odd combination, but the buff cashier seemed to gain respect for the brunette, if that was even possible to distinguish simply by the way the mustache shook on his face. Clarke had waved and smiled before going about her own business—and _maybe_ she snuck a peek at Lexa’s body as she walked away, she’s only human.

Lexa is at Vera’s miscellaneous shop picking up candles and lighters, they almost bump into each other—”If you wanted to touch me, Clarke, all you had to do was ask,” and the quip was followed by a coy, “maybe later.”—but they manage to avoid collision and instead exchange a few words, tension included and free of charge.

Clarke is walking into Bellamy and Octavia’s place on the edge of town, ready for their day of sightseeing, and by sightseeing she means admiring the farm animals and watching the sun dip below the hills of Arkadia, when she catches Lexa’s gaze from the couch in the living room.

“Are you stalking me?” the blonde manages to get out without stuttering after she realizes that the other girl is in just a sports bra and jeans.

“You have no proof,” the brunette says as she turns back towards the coffee table, facing a fan that’s turning from left to right and back slowly.

“What are you doing here?”

Clarke lingers between the front door and the couch, unsure if she could burst the brunette’s bubble and sit next to her, and not entirely trusting herself to get too close to the shirtless girl without trying something.

“Octavia’s toilet’s busted. Bell had to plow some fields today so he told me to lend a hand.”

“Is there anything you can’t do?”

Lexa smirks. “I’m sure there’s something I haven’t come across yet.”

Clarke hums behind the smirk that she reflects. “Did Octavia manage to make matters worse by trying to fix it herself first?”

“You know your friends well.”

The blonde sits on the couch, finally thinking it ridiculous to stand away from Lexa like she was infested by the plague.

“I’ve been studying the Blake siblings for years. They’re an interesting species.”

Lexa cracks a smile. “You go to Polis don’t you?”

“The bane of my existence.”

“And you’re studying medicine?”

Clarke’s lips twitch. “Tentatively,” she says.

“I hear you’re an artist,” Lexa says it like she’s sure of it, and the blonde raises a brow at this. Most people around her consider her art a hobby, and for a while she did too, but it’s hard to call something that ignites so much passion a mere past-time. And being called an artist by a beautiful half naked girl just makes it sound a million times better.

“Is there anything you don’t know about me?” Clarke asks teasingly.

Lexa meets her gaze with a teasing grin of her own.

“It’s a small town, Clarke. People talk,” a pause. “You’re very loved here.”

The blonde leans forward.

“Did you have any expectations?”

The brunette hums something low and sweet in her throat. “Maybe.”

“Well, do I live up to them?”

Lexa fixes her gaze on Clarke’s lips, focusing on how her tongue peeks out to swipe at her bottom lip.

The back door opens and closes roughly, Octavia appearing after a moment through the kitchen door, a smirking Raven a step behind her.

“Did we interrupt something?” and, really, Clarke expects nothing less from the mechanic.

The blonde rolls her eyes as Lexa slips her shirt on slowly and shamelessly.

Octavia sends Clarke _the look_ before wiping her face clean of emotion and producing a smile. “Bell’s already waiting at the hill with the boys. Up and at ‘em soldiers!”

“Why didn’t you go into the military again?” asks Raven—who had sat with Octavia months prior, the both of them contemplating getting out of this town by applying to the force. It had been a very tough time for Clarke, tougher for the rest of the town, and toughest for Bellamy, who was ready to enlist with her and leave the life he never intended on leaving.

Octavia sniffs royally, keeping her reason close to her chest, guarded; but she likes to play it off with nonchalance, because really, her life is going down a hell of a path at the moment.

“This country doesn’t deserve me.”

* * *

_now_

Lexa’s head is about ready to burst when she opens her eyes against the most blinding of lights. She’s sure there were less lights in the room she was delivered in as a goddamn child than there are around her right now.

She goes to talk—can barely even see past a distant blob across what appears to be a jail cell yet she decides in that moment that _speaking_ is what she wants to do—but the action proves fruitless when her head pounds in protest. Tears prick at her eyes from the sudden sensory overload.

She she shuts them and tries to gain some composure, brings her hands up to feel the dry skin of her face, but when she tries to curl her fingers into a fist the skin stretches violently against the bone. Lexa whines low in her throat, expecting no response, leaning more towards the silence being her companion at the moment, but she gets a response in the form of a chuckle anyway.

A very strained chuckle.

She opens her eyes a second time and adjusts against the heaven-sent lights with a bit more ease, but only marginally. The blob from earlier now appears to be Bellamy.

Bellamy with a busted lip.

Lexa wants to question absolutely everything. What the fuck happened to Bellamy’s face? Where the fuck are they? What the fuck happened last night? But all she does is swallow bile that suddenly rises and attempts to sit up against what she’s pretty sure is the floor of the cell.

“Don’t bother,” Bellamy’s gravelly voice cuts through the ringing in Lexa’s head like pouring honey on a roaring hoard of bees. He doesn’t say anything past those two words and she’s a little frustrated that he’s making no attempt to ease her racing mind.

She tries hard to speak, but the weight of her limbs is such a distraction that all she manages to do is bring her front teeth to her bottom lip, and even that takes over a minute. She blows out and forms the word _fuck_ , though it sounds exceptionally breathless.

“Tell me about it.”

Lexa isn’t used to being hungover, and by the extent of her affliction she guesses that she drank enough to have been a top candidate for alcohol poisoning. She lays still for long enough to gather her senses. The pounding of her head doesn’t subside, but she supposes that’s the price she has to pay for acting so foolish and responding so thoughtlessly to what she had been given control over. Typical of her to take a wonderful turn to her life and let it crash and burn.

“Where are we?” she asks after swallowing ten times, and then once more just to be certain that her tongue won’t fall out of her mouth when she speaks.

Bellamy turns to look at her from where he rests on the bed of the cell, his head and back pressed up against the white wall, slouched over like he had just been defeated, and he looks like he has been.

“Police station.”

“What happened?”

He looks just the right amount of unimpressed to suggest that he’s been up regretting the actions that led them here.

“Should I start from the beginning?”

Lexa doesn’t respond, but she’s sure that he hears her whisper a very disoriented _asshole_ under her breath. He continues regardless of the insult.

“Well, after you woke me up from my nap for some fucking reason, you pushed me and Raven to get wasted with you. Raven fell asleep an hour into it. After that it’s… fuzzy.”

He zones out, then, staring at the wall opposite him like he’s replaying the events of the night prior.

“Lexa,” he sighs.

She sits up slowly, her palms resting heavy on the cold ground, knuckles screaming against the strain, and when she looks down to see both of her hands covered in a caked red—well, there isn’t much she can do at this point, thinks that she’s in this place because she’s already done too much.

She brings her hands closer, notes the purple around the first two knuckles of her right hand, notes that the blood can’t be more than two hours old, already dry and cracking like too much paint on a thick canvas.

Maybe it’s the fact that she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t scream or cry or vomit, simply sits there and traces over her hands like she’s seeing them for the first time, like she isn’t even the slightest bit afraid that the blood might not be hers.

She puts her hands down a minute later, the stench of the blood too overwhelming for her irritated stomach. The blood around Bellamy’s split lip is just as dry as her own, and so she wonders.

“Did I do that to you?”

Bellamy’s eyes round out at the edges with a sadness and that’s answer enough for Lexa, who turns around so he won’t see the tears form.

“You didn’t mean to.”

And isn’t that the pinnacle of the story—the hero remains a hero only because their harmful actions weren’t intentional. In the end, it doesn’t matter how much good one does, it’s the evil that’s remembered.

She doesn’t beg for forgiveness, she doesn’t dwell on the fact that she hurt someone she’s come to care so much about—and if she could dwell on it she _would_ , but she can’t even fucking _remember_ , which only pushes her further away from the guilt she should be feeling.

Instead she stays numb, limbs heavy and aching, mind racing too fast to make out any actual thoughts. She’s finally aware of her body’s exhaustion when Officer Kane comes around.

“You’re up,” his voice comes from behind her. She wipes at her eyes with her shirt, not wanting to streak blood on her face and make matters worse.

She can still feel Bellamy’s gaze crawling across her back, no doubt trying to tear through her skin like she tore through his. Is this what revenge is supposed to feel like? So soft and worried?

When Kane doesn’t receive Bellamy’s usual snark, he speaks up again.

“I see this night has chewed the both of you up,” now he’s just playing games with them, egging them on, trying to extend their stay with the blades of his words. Marcus isn’t a bad guy, is actually considered the closest thing to a father figure Bellamy has ever had, but the man is easily irritated when called into his job in the early hours of the morning.

“Get on with it, Kane,” Bellamy spits harshly.

“I’d watch your mouth, son. It’s the reason you’re both locked up in the first place.”

“Get your feelings hurt, Officer?”

Lexa wants to tell Bellamy to quit it, to stop poking the bear, but she doesn’t know where she stands with him anymore. She’d be silly to assume that a single split lip would warrant the end of their friendship, but she can’t fill in enough gaps in between the drinking and the violence to come to any conclusions of why she did it. He claims she didn’t mean to, but when has intention ever mattered to the people she’s hurt?

Suddenly, just as quickly as Clarke came into her life and knocked everything upside down, the blonde trips into the front of her thoughts, the tips of her hair trailing across her vision and tickling her mind.

Bellamy and Kane—as oblivious as they are, unaware of her revelation about the reason she’s acted the way she has—continue to bicker like a father and son that can’t stand the fact that they have to share a tent on their camping trip.

“Do you know how many times I’ve let you and your friends go without even a slap on the wrist?”

“I’m assuming you’ve kept count?”

Lexa remembers the phone call, remembers Clarke’s silky voice so warm in her ear, it almost felt like she was right there beside her on Bellamy’s couch, whispering about her affections for another man and launching her hand into Lexa’s chest. It’s no surprise that Clarke has found someone, but heartbreak always feels so raw in the moment.

Lexa grips her head in her hands—doesn’t even care that the scent of her palms is making it so hard to breath, that the sensation of dried blood against her temple feels more holy than it should.

“Clarke,” she sighs softly.

The voices behind her are discussing the terms of their release, the voices in her head are pushing her toward the edge, the cold temperature of the ground beneath her thighs is seeping through her clothes and breathing heavy against her skin—she feels frozen.

“Clarke,” she whispers again for good measure.

Maybe the memory of her warmth will thaw the ice.

* * *

“ _Clarke_.”

She jumps out of her skin when Octavia shouts her name, nearly falling over the edge of the couch. She turns to glare at the brunette across the room that holds an innocent grin on her face, folding some clothes and looking like she had just been waiting for the right time to strike.

“Good. Now that you’re up, I wanted to talk about Finn.”

Clarke sits up at that. The blonde had been purposefully avoiding any Finn-talk around Octavia. The girl just has a way of getting under Clarke’s skin—and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that O is her best friend and knows exactly what Clarke is feeling as she’s feeling it and can read through her like her favorite book.

Clarke had actually not talked about Finn since the first night they met at that bar, in hopes that maybe Octavia would forget that he even existed, or perhaps chalk up their encounter as a one night stand.

“Finn?”

Octavia nods. “The boy you’ve been seeing.”

Clarke scoffs. “I wouldn’t call it _seeing—_ ”

“I ran into him on campus yesterday. Sounded really happy that you said yes to being his girlfriend, which was news to me, who thought you were already a girlfriend.”

“Don’t start, O.”

The brunette stops what’s she’s doing to look into blue eyes. “What’s going on with you, Clarke? This whole summer you and Lexa were inseparable, then she didn’t come see us off and suddenly you’re dating someone else?”

“Don’t make something from nothing. I’m fine.”

“Fine is the word people use when they’re _not_ fine. I’m here for you, you know that, right?”

“Yes, and I appreciate it, I do, but I really am fine,” Clarke says firmly, trying to lay down the law of the land. She truly does feel fine, and while feeling fine is complete shit compared to these past few years of feeling indestructible, fine is better than she’d hoped for.

Octavia keeps her gaze steady on Clarke, giving in for a moment and going back to the task at hand. She’s able to fold two shirts while Clarke watches TV before she has to open her mouth and rattle Clarke’s nerves.

“I know that Raven always says the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, but if she were here right now she’d agree with me when I say that the only way to fix this is to get under Lexa and tell her that’s where you want to be for the rest of your life.”

She says it all in one puff of air, smiling halfway through because it’s supposed to come out more as a joke than anything else, but Clarke knows just how serious Octavia is. The problem, of course, is that Octavia thinks that she has some sort of understanding of the strain between Clarke and Lexa—that Clarke is unwilling to project her feelings in a way that doesn’t involve sex. The problem, of course, is that Clarke put it all on the line and got it thrown in her face—however gentle Lexa was with her rejection doesn’t matter, rejection doesn’t hurt any less when delivered with love, the knife still cuts through the skin if it’s driven through slowly.

Clarke doesn’t warrant that with a response, instead she flicks through the channels and settles on the food network.

Octavia doesn’t let up with her staring, the Blake siblings are nothing if not persistent, but she sighs after she realizes that Clarke is really not going to give in.

“I’m sorry, that was out of line. It’s just hard to wrap my head around everything that’s happening when I don’t know what caused it.”

Clarke, in a tired attempt to steer the conversation away from Lexa, gives Octavia a pleading look—all furrowed eyebrows and downturned lips.

“Sometimes we’re better off not knowing.”

Clarke knows what she’s done for the people she cares for, knows that she’s been ready to give up everything she’s ever loved—and she _did_ give up everything she loves when she decided to follow Octavia to Polis—but she’d be damned if she ever let anyone know it.

What Clarke doesn’t know is that Octavia isn’t impervious to her selflessness—nobody is. Clarke gives and gives and refuses to take.

She wonders when that’s going to come back to haunt her.

* * *

  _then_

Clarke’s first night reunited with familiar faces, lit up by the shine of the moon and the flame of the fire, enveloped by the sounds of the earth, well, it makes her tear up.

Lexa—who hasn’t looked away from Clarke for more than a minute at a time—is the only one who notices.

The blonde is watching as Bellamy recites one of his favorite sonnets, watching as the dark-haired boy lifts his hands in dramatics and twirls around Octavia, who wears a dim smile and bright eyes, a result of three beers and a crisp, long night. Blue eyes then focus on Raven sitting gingerly on Jasper’s back as he snores into the soil beneath him, naturally passed out after a long shift at the bar and one drink too many, given to him by Murphy who’s watching the scene unfold before him with joy disguised as disinterest.

She sniffs quickly and wipes at her eye when she finds everyone distracted, but the action makes Lexa sit next to her on the rotten log, pressing their shoulders and thighs together to fit on the small piece of wood. It’s the closest they’ve ever been physically, and Clarke would appreciate it more if she wasn’t currently stuck in a bout of nostalgia.

“How often do you come to visit?” Lexa asks softly, her hands folding together in her lap.

Clarke allows a smile to tremble on her face. She didn’t expect her homecoming to bring so much sadness. She missed her town about as much as she thought she would, missed her people like they were ripped from her, like it wasn’t her choice to leave.

“Every summer, and now at the end of the year for the holidays.”

“That’s not often.”

Clarke shakes her head and bites her lip. “I like Polis, but…”

She doesn’t finish her statement, at a loss for words towards a justification she doesn’t think she deserves. Lexa lets her have the silence, would give her more if she asked—and isn’t _that_ a scary thought, to already feel relinquished of power by a girl she met days ago; although, in her defense, she swears that she’s been getting adjusted in this town with Clarke by her side. The blonde has left pieces of herself with everybody in this town, has left a painting in every store, and a heart that much lighter in every being.

“I just got here and I already feel like I’m gone,” Clarke all but whispers, weakened by a handful of beers and the night’s constant power over her soul, as if being in the presence of the bare universe forces them all to become bare themselves. It doesn’t help her case that Lexa looks at her with a lazy smile, such green eyes, attentive and patient, like she’d be content to just sit in Clarke’s silence if the blonde allows it.

“Violent delights have violent ends. You’d be wise to make the most of them.”

Clarke smiles a tiny quirk of her lips, her eyes fixed far off in another realm where she never left, and even then she manages to produce her usual coyness.

“I guess William is the man of the hour.”

Lexa places her hand on Clarke’s thigh right above the knee and squeezes, blue eyes meeting green instantly.

“He’s the man of the millennium,” a pause, hesitant. “But tonight is ours.”

Clarke nods her head once, already feeling like she’s going to get in over her head, already feeling herself sinking beneath the surface.

“To us,” she says with her drink slightly elevated. Bellamy has Octavia thrown over a shoulder, Raven and Jasper are up and off doing god knows what, and Murphy sends her a wink over Lexa’s shoulder.

If hell really is empty, and all the devils really are here, then she’s glad she’s not living among the angels tonight.

* * *

A week passes, a handful of visits to John’s Pub, an array of tipsy nights; Clarke vaguely recalls snuggling close to Francis after she was introduced to him, remembers talking to him like he was able to hold a decent conversation with her, remembers the soft crease of Lexa’s smile watching her, the distant fade of a blush on her cheeks.

Lexa had become a new member to their usual shenanigans—probably not as new as Clarke thought, but considering the blonde’s absence from the town, the brunette is new to her—and Clarke couldn’t be more grateful for her calming presence despite all the chaos that her friends bring.

Currently, Clarke is with Raven at the supermarket in the center of town, walking alongside the brunette as she slowly rolls their cart down the aisle.

“How about we have one of our fancy dinners at your house tomorrow? With the whole gang,” Raven proposes. She’s ready to leave in a few days to participate in the internship she managed to apply to online so she wants to squeeze in as much quality time with her girls before she’s gone all summer.

“Sounds good. Loved the bow-tie around your brace last year.”

Raven smiles wistfully. “What a classic.”

“How long is your internship?”

“Most of the summer. I’ll be back before you guys go back to hell.”

Clarke ignores the jab at Polis because she knows she’s called it much, much worse.

“Are you excited?”

Raven shrugs, throwing a box of cereal into the cart.

“Honestly? Is it bad that I don’t want to go?”

Clarke furrows her eyebrows and shakes her head. She understands what it’s like to leave Arkadia, even if it is for just a summer in Raven’s case, she knows it’ll feel like a lifetime. It’s a daunting task to leave everything she’s ever known, and she still doesn’t know how she does it for so many months of the year, but she knows that Raven can withstand it for a few months, she knows that everyone she surrounds herself with is meant for greater things—and despite that, they all wish for nothing more than to _stay_.

“I mean, I’m missing the annual bonfire and you and O _just_ got back. I also heard Bellamy is throwing Officer Kane a rager for his birthday next month.”

Bellamy has a bad habit of throwing ridiculously loud parties for people he ends up not even inviting to them. He considers himself wholesome for throwing commemoration parties while the respective reason for the bash lays asleep in their bed across town, sometimes even right next door. Imagine a person cursing the ruckus of their neighbor, not even knowing that the party was for them.

Clarke snorts at that. “You mean another rager like the one he threw for O and I when we’d already left for Polis?”

Raven shrugs. “The guy likes to honor people. Besides, the fucker just wanted an excuse to get crazy drunk.”

“Oh please, Bellamy doesn’t need an excuse,” Clarke says, biting her lip and taking a deep breath before telling Raven what she needs to hear.

“You should go. To the internship. I think it’ll be good for you.”

Sometimes change is good, and just because it hasn’t been the best experience for Clarke doesn’t mean it can’t be life-changing for someone else. She’s all about pushing her friends toward growth. She would do anything for them, she knows—would give any of them her heart if they were lying with their chests open in need of one.

“I think so, too,” the brunette agrees reluctantly—and Clarke knows she’s excited about the opportunity, but she also knows that backstabbing feeling that comes with leaving Arkadia. It’s something strange and sour, but it haunts her without fault and without mercy.

“Maybe I can invite Lexa to the dinner,” and Clarke tries to say it as innocently as she can, but Raven can make devils of angels with a single glance. The brunette smirks as she unloads their cart onto the self-checkout station.

“If Bell doesn’t get to her first, sure,” Raven says this innocently, _suspiciously_ innocent.

“Oh,” Clarke says with raised eyebrows. “Are they close?”

Raven snorts. “Not in the way you’re thinking, fortunate for you.”

Clarke at least _tries_ to act affronted, like she isn’t doing cartwheels in her mind. She doesn’t usually misinterpret her connection with people she’s interested in, so she had hoped that she didn’t think her immediate connection with Lexa was all in her head. The other girl had been responding incredibly to her cues, if Clarke does say so herself.

“Fortunate for me why, exactly?”

Raven gives her _the look_.

“Please. Like the lesbian inside you wasn’t yodeling the first time you saw her.”

Clarke scoffs. “I’d like to think the woman within me is bisexual.”

“Yeah well, Lexa is a flaming homo and she’s gonna be _within_ you real soon, so...” she finishes her sentence off with a lazy wave of her hand.

Clarke does nothing but roll her eyes.

* * *

The dinner, as expected, turns out to be a hell of a wreck.

Bellamy had warned her that they would all dress up and act classy for about half an hour before reverting back to the people they truly are—reckless and loud and shamelessly proud of it.

Clarke had also warned her about it, and then proceeded to invite her as they stood in the middle of town after bumping into each other. Lexa had accepted the invitation and asked all types of questions about the night like Bellamy hadn’t filled her in the morning prior. Honestly, she just loved the sound of Clarke’s voice, which is insane because she’s known the girl for less than two weeks.

Yet, just in that short time Lexa has developed a fondness for Clarke that she hasn’t felt with anyone before. Sometimes her eyes find Clarke across the street or across a store—like her eyes were already looking for her, trying to distinguish between _the_ blonde and every other girl’s lacking shade of yellow—and Lexa has to stop what she’s doing to soak her in. She’s tuned out of many conversations just by being hypnotized by Clarke’s smile. So to have that smile eager and directed at her, well, how could Lexa deny that? How could she not grasp at any reason to extend the moment?

Right now, through the loud conversation around them and the dim light of the dining room setting a glow to them all, Lexa can’t help but let her eyes wander to Clarke across the table. She’s stunning in her black dress, and even though Lexa actually put a bit of effort into her outfit—a blouse and some slacks—she’s sure that Clarke could wear a tank top with pajama pants and still leave Lexa feeling underdressed. The brunette supposes that beauty really isn’t as skin deep as she once thought. Clarke’s beauty is tangible and entirely unfair.

The last thing Lexa expected when moving to Arkadia was to be walking among angels.

The clinking of a glass shatters through her thoughts.

“I’d like to propose a toast,” says Bellamy at the head of the table.

And really, they had stopped pretending to be classy a while ago, dropping the accents and excessive flourishes of the hands, but Bellamy really wants to milk the last few minutes of this performance.

“To everyone. We lasted longer than we thought we would.”

Octavia, at the other end of the table, raises her glass as well. She likes to milk it as much as her brother does. Dramatics must run in the family.

“May we last forever.”

Jasper, ever the elegant one, says a crisp _fuck yeah_ under his breath before downing the rest of his wine and proposing a drinking game. Raven agrees instantly, and Murphy, for lack of a better thing to do, follows suit.

They decided to hold the dinner at Clarke’s house, considering how clean her mother keeps it and how much bigger it is compared to everyone else’s. Lexa had enjoyed looking at the pictures on the walls when she first arrived.

The previously unoccupied chair beside her is suddenly filled with life, a flash of blonde sliding in and staring straight ahead, eyes focused on the large painting of jesus in their direct line of sight. Lexa didn’t mean to be staring into the eyes of god’s son, but in her moment of daze her eyes had locked onto beady brown.

“My grandma’s really religious,” Clarke offers as an explanation for the unsettling artwork. “She surprises us with visits to make sure we still keep it up.”

Lexa takes in the man’s crossed arms and wrinkled robes, long brown hair and horde of angels behind him looking ready to attack at the first sight of ungodly filth.

“I feel like I offended him,” Lexa says as a joke, but the more she stares into his eyes the less funny she believes herself to be.

Clarke laughs, and the sound makes the roots at Lexa’s base strong. She would bottle the noise up and carry it around in jars if it were possible.

“Want to see my room?”

It’s asked sweetly, innocently, and tenderly, not at all suggestive. Lexa feels like she’s a fifteen year old with a crush on the most popular girl in school, feels young and in love and not at all like she’s surrounded by drunk people who just _pretended_ to have class for an hour, like actually having class is a far cry from ordinary—and really, all this night has done is make her realize there’s no place she’d rather be.

“Clarke,” Lexa chastises playfully while her cheeks burn red. “Not in front of _Jesus_.”

The blonde rolls her eyes with a smile.

“Follow me.”

* * *

Clarke’s immediate reaction—upon realizing that she is alone, in her room, with _Lexa—_ is to take off her shirt, unclip her bra, and announce “ _you thirsty?_ ” like some poorly paid star in a B-list porno. Thankfully, she reins in her intensely inappropriate desire and merely stares.

It’s the first time the brunette is in her room and Clarke is nervous. They’re usually in much more public situations, surrounded by Bellamy or Raven or Octavia, surrounded by bottles of beer, surrounded by voices, but this silence is swirling around and making her vibrate.

Lexa is in the middle of her room, the curtains open to let the moonlight stream through, illuminating her brown hair and making her a silver goddess. Clarke feels like Lexa’s presence is an overwhelming entity, she feels like she’s choking on air with the way that Lexa grips her half-empty beer with both hands, her thumbs stroking the condensation, her eyes sweeping across the paintings on Clarke’s walls and admiring the fact that this is where she stands; and she doesn’t ever want to leave.

Lexa unwraps the jacket from around her waist and slides it on, eyes trying to take in every inch of the room. The brunette is the visual representation of Arkadia, simple and comfortable and _home_.

To keep from falling deeper into the realisation that _this is it, this is what I want_ , Clarke speaks up.

“C’mere.”

She brushes by Lexa and opens her window, stepping out and sitting gently on the edge of her roof, looking over the silver grass in her backyard and the way that the lake mocks the moon with its reflection.

Lexa looks at her dubiously before stepping through the window herself, sitting so close that their thighs and shoulders are pressed together.

“I rarely get a moment alone with you,” Lexa releases into the night. She recognizes Clarke’s ability to silence the demons in her head. To be with Clarke is to be silent, to stop thinking and to let her heart beat the way her mind tells her it shouldn’t—at least, not so soon.

“Trying to get me alone?” Clarke says with a smirk, knocking into the brunette and making her smile.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” Clarke nods, taking in the grey night, playing with the label on her water bottle filled with vodka—Raven calls it classy, but really it’s just cheap.

“What made you come to Arkadia?”

Lexa shrugs. Her answers for this question have always been vague, but she can’t be vague with Clarke, finds her heart won’t allow it.

“I had no reason to stay where I was,” and she still manages to respond vaguely. Lexa supposes the person at her core isn’t ready to let go of who they are just yet, no matter how tender and beautiful the girl beside her may be.

Clarke is looking at her now, but the brunette appears lost in thought and memory.

“What reasons did you have before you left?”

Clarke has never had any shame in asking questions. She’s the type of person that would rather regret saying something than regret saying nothing at all, and in the end, she knows a person will only answer the questions they want to.

Lexa shifts slightly, their shoulders brushing before pressing together again.

“My sister left, which was understandable, I had seen that coming,” then a pause, a clench of the jaw. “Then my girlfriend left, too.”

Lexa chuckles dryly after a moment. “That pretty much did it.”

Clarke knows a thing or two about what it takes to make a home—the people make the place.

“Why did your girlfriend leave?”

Lexa looks her in the eye then, the close proximity electric.

“Distance. I was not in the company of ruining a person’s passion because I loved them.”

Clarke nods and lets the silence stretch out. Lexa breaks it one more time.

“It came and went, like everything does. It ended...”

“Like everything does,” Clarke finishes under her breath, Lexa’s own whisper getting caught in her throat.

Lexa nods once. “I was foolish to think any differently.”

She doesn’t know why she’s being so open with a girl she barely knows, but she feels like Clarke, maybe in another form or another life, has known her, tended to her wounds and held her like nobody else would dare to. Maybe this is the life in which Lexa can return the favor.

“Where did your sister go?” Clarke asks.

“She left to start a family of her own. I don’t hold it against her, but sometimes I wish her first family was enough.”

“Hey, you guys are still family. Nothing can change that.”

Lexa shrugs, watching Clarke from the corner of her eye, not ready to meet her soft blue eyes just yet.

The sound of glass breaking in the living room downstairs stirs them from this daze that they’ve found themselves in, nostalgic and present all the same. The blonde is glad that her mother is out working, she would’ve felt guilty if she were disrupting her sleep.

Lexa turns to look through Clarke’s window, and before she can get up to check out the sound she feels a hand cover hers.

“Everything happens for a reason,” Clarke says wistfully.

Lexa has been been told over and over again that it wasn’t her fault, that she did all she can to prevent the outcome, the separation, but she still can’t feel like there was more that she could’ve done. And the blonde before her isn’t pressuring her to release her guilt, is simply stating that what is meant to happen will happen, that the universe has a way of being exactly what it needs to be for everyone living in it.

Clarke’s eyes are dark, intense, and consuming. Lexa finds herself leaning in with an unfocused gaze trying to capture every feature of Clarke’s face, every sound in the night, every slight silhouette of the moon.

Clarke leans in impossibly closer as she feels Lexa’s soft breath against her cheek.

Her eyes almost prickling with tears due to how badly she wants to kiss Lexa. She’s dealt with her fair share of desire in the past, but she’s never been so calculated about it, never taken a step back to consider a move to be initiated _too soon_. She’s never had to hold herself back, never wanted to, but with Lexa everything is different. If anything, she knows the longer the tension between them stands, the better the kiss will be when it happens. It just doesn’t feel like the right time, and if there’s something Clarke thinks she never has enough of, it’s time.

The night is crawling over her skin, her company consists of a tall brunette with soft edges and a heavy presence, all in all, Clarke is in bliss. She would stay this close to the other girl—tracing over the different shades of green in her eyes, almost playfully nudging her nose against the underside of Lexa’s sharp jaw—forever if she could. Lexa’s hair is dark and wild, some strands delicately braided and held together at the ends by rubber bands—it must do some serious damage to her hair, but at least it looks pretty. Clarke can appreciate someone who suffers for beauty, finds her entire life has consisted of finding different ways to slice at her skin so she can have the best shade of red on her canvas.

“Hey _gays_ , Jasper is about to pee in the sink,” Raven declares suddenly as she bursts through the door of Clarke’s room. The girl is obviously intoxicated, her usual snark lacking its finesse.

 _Fucking hell_ , whispers the blonde under her breath as she turns to Raven with a stern look.

“Something you taught him while I was away?”

The girl inside the room rolls her eyes. “That was _one time_.”

Clarke snorts. “Yeah, one time _that night_.”

Lexa smiles beside her. She hadn’t moved away from Clarke when Raven walked in. All she’s doing is looking at the blonde with hooded eyes and that damn curl of her lips, grinning just hard enough to allow her teeth to peek out.

When Raven walks right back down the stairs with her hands up in the air, exasperated, Lexa speaks up.

“Has everyone here had a sink incident?”

Clarke looks over with spark in her eye. “You’re not an official citizen of Arkadia until you’ve peed in a sink.”

“What have I gotten myself into?” and with the way that the moon illuminates blonde hair to make the girl in front of her seem ethereal, Lexa isn’t sure if she’s just talking about the town anymore.

Clarke’s smirk is answer enough.

* * *

  _now_

It’s been a month since she started officially dating Finn and things have fallen into a routine.

If there’s one thing Clarke hates, it’s getting used to something. She even hates it when the garbage men pick up her waste every Thursday back home solely because it’s their routine; it’s abhorred by her.

And that’s why, when Finn proposes for them to go to dinner and a movie like he did last Friday and the Friday before that—Clarke suspects that he’s trying to sneak his own routine past her—she declines his offer and suggests something different instead.

“What’s wrong with dinner and a movie?” He asks from the driver’s seat, ready to drive to the restaurant before Clarke took the keys and sat on them so he couldn’t get to them. He had look severely unimpressed by the sudden turn of events.

“Nothing. I love food and I love movies, but not tonight. Not for three Fridays in a row.”

Finn chuckles, finally aware of where this odd behavior. Clarke made her hatred for a set schedule known on one of their first dates. He finds it endearing, especially when compared to his usual knack for all things planned out and in order. He doesn’t know how she survives going to college, following the schedule of her classes, but he supposes she only makes sacrifices when she desperately has to.

“How about we switch it up, then?” he can almost physically see Clarke’s ears perk up with interest.

“What did you have in mind?”

He smirks. “A movie and _then_ dinner.”

The punch that he gets to his shoulder is expected, and it makes him laugh when Clarke huffs in her seat. Clarke hides her own laughter well, but the image of his pink smirk hits too close to home, so she looks away before she can get swept up in her thoughts of the familiar, of home.

The thoughts come anyway, no matter how hard she tries to fight them, she thinks about Bellamy and Lexa and wonders what they’re doing, what trouble they’re getting into. Raven had called her the day after she and Lexa had spoken over the phone two weeks ago, ranting about how the brunette duo was arrested and how they had definitely seen better days. Clarke had been worried, had wanted to call Bellamy right then and there and demand to speak to Lexa, demand to know what the fuck had gotten into her, but she figured that she had done enough, and that maybe silence is what Lexa needed from her.

“Why don’t we go back to my place? You can officially meet Octavia,” Clarke offers, realizing that she’s been hiding Finn from everyone for some reason she doesn’t know—but is actually just too scared to admit. Everyone she loves has seen her at her best with someone else, and to flip the tables on them so quickly, well that’s just a little suspicious from Clarke’s part, especially when it involves a relationship. They know damn well about Clarke’s lack of attachment to people, and for the blonde to have found someone so quickly after Lexa, it just looks like she’s trying to fill some space to avoid the emptiness.

And it’s not that she doesn’t feel anything for Finn, because she _does_. He’s sweet and funny and is a bit more serious than she is, knows when to reign in her silliness and get work done, but also knows when to let her have the spotlight, knows when to sit back and admire. It’s a drastic change from the past, when Clarke felt like she was the one who admired and admired—her dramatics only emphasized by Bellamy and Raven, edged on by Lexa’s twinkling eyes and melodious laughter. Lexa never believed that she took it too far, never believed it inappropriate when Clarke told her about how, to refrain from letting the sadness take over her life and completely ruin her, she had let Bellamy throw a party on the day of her father’s funeral, had gotten exceptionally drunk and had danced until night became morning, until her audience became the light.

But, Lexa isn’t here right now—won’t ever be here with her in the way she used to be.

Finn’s eyes widen in surprise. “Are you sure?”

Clarke looks him over—his curious brown eyes and his smooth skin. She knows that he deserves the best, and maybe she can be the one that gives it to him.

“I’m sure.”

* * *

Lexa wakes up in a field of green, little specks of purple flowers dotting the landscape every few yards. It’s the kind of field she would only ever dream about, and even then nature has a way of transcending fantasy to make the unbelievable so tangible and ready to be grasped. It’s a feeling she hasn’t gotten used to since she moved to Arkadia, a feeling she doesn’t think she’ll ever have control over considering how overwhelming it is to be out in the open and so exposed to a world that only ever wants to help her grow by ripping her apart at the seams.

She hears a low hum beside her, lets her eyes focus on the blue sky like it’s the first time she’s ever seen it, and for a moment it feels like it is—not a single cloud, only a swirl of blue, a color painfully familiar.

The humming beside her gets louder, almost as if the person orchestrating this song knows that she’s finally woken up, and if she’s being honest she doesn’t even know when she fell asleep in the first place. It’s a song she remembers vaguely, like it was sung to her when she was asleep many years ago and the moment she woke up it was all gone, just a blank wall with a record that had run its course, spinning until someone finally finds the energy to put it out of its misery. It’s not a song she necessarily relates with, finds she doesn’t want to relate to the sadness, but there’s a nostalgia that it brings to her—and whats nostalgia if not a longing for what you once had, a sadness over what once was?

“Glad to see you’re awake.”

Bellamy is sitting beside her with his legs crossed underneath him, his fingertips sliding across the flowers, grazing them softly, like if he admired a bit too lovingly he’d destroy them all.

It must be hard for him to be timid and soft on a land that he’s so used to devastating. It’s hard enough for the boy to reign back his love for his sister, biting his tongue whenever she talks about an experience she had, clenching his fists by his sides when his protectiveness begs for him to tell her to back away from an edge or back away from someone who will never deserve her.

Understandably, it’s hard to be in the center of such beauty and not want to cause chaos. Lexa would know, because being around Clarke—and though she tries so hard not to think about her, the blonde always finds a way back into her mind—is like setting her insides on fire. To busy her mind from the aching of her heart she wonders, for the second time, where they are.

Lexa doesn’t know how long they’ve been out here or what time it currently is, figures it’s close to sundown because of how low the sun hangs in the sky, just on the brink of dusk. She wonders when it is that she fell asleep, wonders how they ended up here, why they even came here in the first place. She’s sure she’s still a bit intoxicated from the night before, but she won’t let the looming wave of sobriety put a damper on her evening.

Bellamy seems to know where he is though, with the way that his eyes sweep across the land with lack of awe, with no hesitation; unlike Lexa, who’s looking at everything like it’s the first time she’s used her eyes. She’s enticed by the way the sun seems to be crawling across her skin, like it’s trying to find any cut or bruise, any vulnerable part of her body to sneak inside of, and she wishes that it would. She hopes that the sun finds a scar that isn’t quite done healing yet so that she can feel a little bit of light.

Sometimes Lexa wishes she lived in a place where there was sunlight twenty-four hours a day. Somewhere she could close her eyes and there would still be so much light trying to fit it’s way through, trying to keep them open, trying to bring home the fact that _hey, sleeping is for the dead_.

Maybe that’s why she’s been sleeping so much lately.

She takes in what it feels like to be in the middle of nowhere, just the grassy hills, the flowers, the few cows sprinkled at the base of the hill they’ve found themselves on—though she can’t see them, they are heard and they are loved. She spots a tractor left alone, rusting; a barn falling apart, its doors hanging by its hinges. She can barely make it out now, realizes she doesn’t even want to make out any of the details. She finds it’s beautiful because it’s distant; it’s beautiful in theory because she can’t see the details, can’t see the termites chewing through the wood, the weeds growing through the cracks of the walls, the sunlight filtering in through the holes on the roof. She doesn’t need to be up close to contemplate its destruction. She feels like she is the barn personified, like if people got too close they would see that she’s too fucked up to be cared for.

Clarke was the first person she let through her doors, and she still somehow managed to push the girl away—like the blonde didn’t want to repaint every wall, cut the weeds out, patch up the holes on the roof.

Lexa just doesn’t think she’s ready to feel new. She doesn’t understand why she likes to soak in her suffering, like maybe she wouldn’t be herself without it.

To be fair, Clarke never blatantly said that she wanted to fix Lexa, because the brunette doesn’t really give off the impression that there’s anything that needs fixing in the first place—but then again, neither does Clarke. In this graveyard of forgotten barns barely standing on their withering foundations, well, they’re neighbors, they share a fence and greet each other every morning like everything isn’t falling apart behind them.

She never thought that what Clarke was doing was charity, or that she was loved simply because she was in the process of becoming better. Lexa just doesn’t know how to handle love, especially not from a distance, especially not with a past like hers. She does think she made a mistake, thinks that Clarke is worth the hours of separation, the long phone calls that never seem to end but never really seem to begin either, like the words are just bricks between them and they’ve been trying to meet in the middle of this road forever.

She wonders briefly what Clarke is doing, if she’s with Octavia or Finn. She wonders what Finn looks like, wonders if he looks even the tiniest bit like her—all dark features and slim bodied. She wonders if maybe he looks something like Clarke, full of light, with the sky for eyes and curves for a body.

Bellamy stopped humming a while ago, instead just letting his palms support his weight, sighing wistfully like he remembers a time he had a moment just like this one but he can’t seem to place when or where it was, like a dream.

“I’m glad I got to stay,” he murmurs, and it’s almost like he says it to himself, but Lexa knows better by now. She knows that Bellamy talks to himself too much when he’s alone plowing fields and helping cows find steady ground, milking them, doing favors for people he’s never met. He talks to himself too damn much to pass up the opportunity to talk to someone else when they’re near him. Lexa also knows better than to ask what he means.

She’s not ready to move her body yet, imagines a simple sway or twitch will pull her from this moment and force her back to a life she’s not ready to lead yet, at least, not for another couple minutes.

“This is as good as it gets, isn’t it?” she asks.

Bellamy shrugs. He had explained to her weeks ago—after they had been released from the police station—everything that happened. She had gotten too drunk to control, drunk enough to make the despair seem happy, had started slamming her hands against the brick wall behind John’s Pub when she caught a glance of the purple couch in the back alley. Bellamy had told her that he didn’t try to stop her at first, felt that she needed to let it out somehow, but the first few drops of blood had scared him. He had realized that she wasn’t going to stop if she could help it, so in an attempt to get in her way, she had hit him. She had apologized and apologized, but the police were already called and on their way due to all the ruckus from moments prior, and that’s how their night progressed.

“Pretty much.”

She tugs on the petals of a flower the size of her palm, twists them until they’ve all fallen against her chest, a miserable pile of beauty, like confetti after being popped and enjoyed temporarily before realizing you have to clean up the mess.

She wishes upon the purple petals, wishes the best for Clarke.

She knows that her resolve isn’t as strong as she makes it out to be, that she’s probably going to phone Clarke in the next couple of days because of the aching in the pit of her stomach that doesn’t go away. It’s not just a longing for the girl that she loves, it’s a yearning to hear a voice so familiar, to listen to laughter and stories and even just a breath through the phone.

She misses Clarke the person, just misses the happiness that follows the blonde like she’s a comet and Lexa is the unlucky planet in her trajectory. Lexa realizes that even if she never has another chance to be with Clarke in the way that she wants, she’d be content just knowing her as a memory—finds that it’s amazing to imagine a time when she’ll be able to step back and say _Clarke Griffin? I knew her, and I loved her, and what a time it was to be alive_.

Maybe if she hadn’t gone and fucked up what they had she wouldn’t have to step back at all, would simply be able to look Clarke in the face and tell her that she’s loved. But she can’t do that now, not when Clarke’s found someone else.

Lexa closes her eyes again, her thoughts swirling in her mind like water going down the drain. She feels tears prickling but refuses to let herself cry, refuses to lose any more control over her emotions. She’s so tired of feeling like this, like she’s a second away from calling Clarke, from getting into Bellamy’s truck and driving hundreds of miles just to be able to see her face, touch her skin, make her furrow her eyebrow in the way that Lexa loves so much.

She supposes this is what she gets for letting fear get in the way of love.

Maybe in the next life, she’ll let love win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as i wrote, inspired by:
> 
> among the wildflowers by the hotelier
> 
> left me by ella mai
> 
> how's it going to be by third eye blind


	3. i'm leaving you behind but it's not the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a whopping 13 thousand words which was unexpected, definitely. thank you so much to every commenting and kudoing and bookmarking, means the world to me. enjoy lots

* * *

_now_

Clarke is distracted.

It’s not that she means to be, but she can’t stop picking at the rusted ring on her finger—a ring that, for the longest time, she forgot she still had on. It’s practically become a part of her anatomy by now, her finger green underneath the band, the red jewel at the top slightly chipped. Anyone that takes a good look at it will see how loved it’s been, how cherished it is; and anyone who’s been around Clarke for longer than a year knows that she misplaces everything she’s ever owned at least once, but this ring has never been lost.

She refuses to let it out of her sight, and sure she’s got a handful of Lexa’s sweaters in her closet, two pairs of her silliest socks, and even a set of boxers that she likes to wear to bed, but there’s something about the ring that has so much significance behind it.

And that’s why, as Finn talks her ear off about something or other, she slides the ring off her finger and pockets it. She owes as much to him, she thinks, for sticking through her half-assed smiles on her low days, for sticking through some unwarranted mood swings that she doesn’t want to explain the reasoning behind. She really does like him—knows that every time she talks about him to herself or to Octavia that it sounds a lot like she’s trying to convince someone of their connection, but she really does believe herself to be genuinely falling for him.

“Are you okay?” Finn asks suddenly, noticing the far off look in her eye.

He’s attentive and he’s not pushy about physical matters, let’s Clarke take the reigns when it comes to affection—something she appreciates, because she’s used to the control, finds that’s all she really has left in her life sometimes.

Just because this budding love for Finn isn’t all-consuming, just because it doesn’t leave her breathless and reeling, doesn’t mean that it’s not true, doesn’t mean it’s not right. Clarke’s been fighting for breath her whole life, maybe it’s time she’s with someone who let’s her breathe easy, who slows her down and gives her time to adjust herself on the tracks instead of derailing.

His calming presence could be exactly what she needs moving forward.

“Never better,” she responds truthfully.

It’s so easy to mistake what one needs out of necessity and what one needs out of desperation.

* * *

Lexa’s sitting on the curb of the street across from John’s Pub, the infamous payphone to her right, her knee bouncing nervously as she contemplates calling Clarke.

She knows she’s been acting unlike herself since Clarke left, has been drinking and acting out and avoiding Abby like the plague—avoiding anyone who looks at her with even the slightest bit of sadness for any reason at all. She knows she shouldn’t soak in this funk that she’s found herself in, but it’s so hard to move on from a situation that ended in such a lackluster manner.

If she ever had to envision her departure from Clarke it would be as extravagant as their time together was, something violent and sudden and bursting with emotion. She didn’t imagine just a single conversation to end everything—a conversation that took place a day before Clarke was to leave for months, which, looking back at now, just seems like a cheap shot.

Their flame, once burning blue and bright, was pissed on so suddenly that it gave Lexa whiplash, like she wasn’t the one to extinguish it with her fears.

“Hey.”

Raven appears next to her, bending tactically so her brace doesn’t get in her way, and she takes a seat beside Lexa on the curb.

Her relationship with Raven is a strange one. On one hand, they are always near each other, even if it’s just for a drink and a chat about whatever’s happening around them at the moment. On the other hand, they never really talk about anything substantial, and not because Lexa doesn’t trust Raven, because for all her snark the girl is ridiculously trustworthy, but only because she’s already confided in Bellamy with her baggage—in her case, getting slammed and arrested on multiple occasions and only once bringing up her past is confiding in someone.

She doesn’t like talking about herself much, figures that the past is in the past and it should only ever be brought up if ghosts come back to haunt her.

She’s shared some emotional moments with Raven—can recall many late night drives in Bellamy’s truck, the both of them laying down on the bed in the back and looking at the stars as they fly by beneath them; can recall Raven being there for her when the foundation of her house was being ravaged by termites, cracking jokes about how her morning wood just isn’t going to please anybody anymore. Raven has never looked at her like she needs any fixing, never looked at her with sadness or pity, has only ever sat down next to her and offered her another beer when hers was running low, their knees knocking together underneath the bar top, stealing glances at each other through the mirror behind the counter of the pub.

Their understanding has always been silent, until tonight.

Lexa nods her head to acknowledge the other girl’s presence.

She fidgets with her fingers, the quarters in her pocket feeling so heavy suddenly. Raven clears her throat and brings her arms to rest on her knees.

“When Clarke was sixteen she swore she was never gonna fall in love.”

Lexa turns to look at the other girl with a raised eyebrow, lips slightly parted. She’s a little surprised—first and foremost because Raven is trusting her with this information, but mostly because Clarke had sworn to a life without love so flippantly at such a young age.

Lexa thinks about the end of the summer, the softness of the purple couch beneath her fingertips, the way that Clarke looked illuminated solely by the moon, the way that her hair tangled as it became dry, her clothes hanging onto her body after being thrown on so carelessly after emerging from the lake—the blonde had said _everything_ that Lexa wanted to hear.

Lexa would do anything for a chance to hear it all again, for a chance to say what she knows she should’ve.

“She told me she would never let herself bleed like that. At _sixteen_ she was already talking about heartbreak the way fifty four year old men with three divorces under their belt talk about it.”

Lexa wants to speak up, wants to ask Raven what exactly her angle is with this, wants to tell her to stop, but it’s so nice to hear about Clarke from a different point of view. It’s so nice to imagine Clarke as someone with flaws, with a tainted past, and not as the perfect girl that Lexa had been blinded by for so many years.

Raven is looking straight ahead as she talks, a shadow cast on her face by the orange light above them.

“The streets were painted red when she saw you. I had never seen her act like that before, and I _get_ it, you’re hot, but I’ve seen Clarke around people she wants to undress before and it just wasn’t the same.”

Lexa goes to open her mouth but Raven spots the movement from her periphery and places her hand on Lexa’s knee, a silent plea for her to keep the words in for just a moment longer.

“I don’t know what happened between you guys at the end of the summer, and I actually don’t care all that much. We all hit bumps in the road, some of us survive and some of us don’t, but you don’t strike me as the type of person who just gives up.”

“It’s my fault,” Lexa reveals softly, twisting the ring on her finger without a thought, a habit she doesn’t realize she’s picked up.

“Then fix it,” Raven says sternly, head finally turning to meet Lexa’s eyes. “Look, I don’t believe in fate, I think this life is a shitty simulation on the laptop of a big-shot somewhere far off, but maybe you guys were programmed to be together.”

Raven continues before Lexa could speak up again. “I’m not trying to give you hope. I don’t know what you said to her before she left, but I’m sure everything you’ve been saying to each other for the past few years can make up for one mistake.”

Lexa listens to the birds chirping overhead with a clenched jaw. She’s never heard Raven speak this much, especially not directed at her, but she’s appreciative of it. She’s only had one beer tonight, is sick of trying to drink her problems away—all that ever happens the next morning is that she develops a headache that adds to the list of things she feels upset about.

“She found someone else.”

Raven nods her head. “I know. She told me about him. He sounds like a good guy, but Clarke doesn’t need a good guy. She needs _you_.”

“I’m not going to get in between their relationship, Raven.”

The girl snorts. “You don’t have to. When Clarke comes back and takes one look at you she’ll know.”

“Know what?”

“That a relationship with anyone other than you is just a bomb waiting to go off. Maybe this Finn guy has a lot of time on the clock, maybe a year, maybe even two, but he’s gonna blow up just like the rest of them.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“He will,” Raven sounds absolutely sure with her answer, and though she claimed that she’s not here to instill hope, Lexa can’t help but feel more hopeful than she has in months.

She gets shoved roughly, suddenly. A palm on her shoulder and a grunt of disapproval from the girl beside her.

“So are you gonna keep bumming around with the lesser Blake or are you gonna get your shit together?”

Lexa doesn’t say anything. She looks down with a small grin on her face.

“Bellamy means well.”

Raven nods. “Has a heart of gold, that kid. He’ll do anything for the people he loves. It’s his flaw.”

“He’s there for me,” Lexa says with a bit of a defensive tone that she didn’t realize had found it’s way through. After all these nights spent with the man she felt she needed to stand by him, even if what Raven is saying is true.

“He funnels beer into your mouth, sure; drinks with you until you both black out. But what you need right now is someone to tell you that you’re being an idiot, and that drinking is only making things worse.”

Raven takes in a deep breath and slaps her hands on her knees.

“So,” she smirks and meets Lexa’s eyes with a determined gaze. “You’re being an idiot.”

And maybe she has a point, maybe all that Lexa needs is to realize that life is grander than the people in it—or maybe she just needs to realize that Clarke is not a world. The blonde acts like one, acts like there are countries at war inside her, acts like she’s an astronaut in the universe outside herself, acts like Lexa is the sun and the moon and the gravity that holds it all together. Maybe all Lexa needs is to become her own gravity—to become a planet within herself, her own, and yet she can’t help but to think about ways to remain in Clarke’s orbit.

“Thanks, Raven.”

The girl adjusts her brace, the slightest grimace on her face. The tips of her ears color when she stumbles a bit as she stands from the curb, but Lexa doesn’t help her, knows that Raven doesn’t need it.

“You’ve got good code, kid.”

It’s a compliment only Raven could pull off, and nicely at that.

It gives Lexa all the strength she needs to move forward.

* * *

_then_

“Missing Raven?”

Lexa stands beside Clarke, the brunette watching blue eyes flicker from the light of the bonfire.

Everyone around them is alive with sound, alive with the heat radiating from the pile of inflamed wood in the middle of the grassland. It’s probably not the best location for a fire, surrounded by so much grass and brush, but the town officials make sure to invite some firefighters to keep everything under control.

Kane makes a grand gesture of declaring all underage drinking legal for the night—as if he hasn’t shared beers with Clarke and Bellamy while he’s off duty.

The girl snorts into her can of beer. “Not particularly,” is her response.

Lexa nods with a click of her tongue.

“Raven warned me you’d say that. Told me you’re a liar.”

Clarke meets green eyes, then. She has one eyebrow raised and a tilt to her head.

“You think I’m a liar?” It’s a challenge, if Lexa’s ever heard one.

The brunette turns her body so she’s completely facing Clarke, the blonde a few inches shorter than her, with a steely gaze that could’ve fooled anyone into thinking her eight feet tall.

“I think you’re really good at pretending.”

It’s an answer Clarke accepts with a smirk.

“Are you enjoying _Arkadia_ so far?” Clarke asks with an exaggerated accent, pronouncing the name of her town like most of the older folks do.

Lexa chuckles, green eyes smiling harder than her lips, looking over every feature of the blonde’s face like she’s trying to memorize her—she’s on _fire_ , and her skin illuminates like gold by the firelight. The intensity in her gaze makes Clarke’s cheeks burn.

“I love it here. The people really make the place.”

Clarke bites her bottom lip, raises her eyebrows in excitement, and places a hand on Lexa’s bicep without thinking twice about it, the two beers she had while pregaming at the Blake residence finally kicking in.

“That’s what _I_ say!”

Lexa looks like she’s trying to stifle her laughter.

“Wise words, Griffin,” she says with a smirk, and Clarke catches on to her tone despite her apparent tipsiness.

She takes what’s supposed to be a threatening step forward as she speaks. “Are you mocking me?”

Lexa takes a minute to appreciate Clarke from up close, eyes tracing over shiny pink lips and the freckle right above them. She wants to live in that freckle, wants to live so close to Clarke’s laughter it’s like she could be swallowed whole by it.

“Hey, lovebirds! We’re going to the lake, you coming?” shouts Octavia from where she’s perched on Murphy’s back, the boy wearing a grimace and a leather jacket like he isn’t about to melt from the heat. Bellamy looks unimpressed by how much of his sister is wrapped around the bartender—who’s the oldest within the group, a good four years older than Bellamy’s twenty two years. Jasper is drunkenly swaying on his feet, a lazy smile on his face that—Clarke would have noticed if the slightest bit more sober—means he’s up to absolutely no good.

Clarke nods eagerly and wraps her fingers around Lexa’s wrist, pulling her gently by the fire and through the growing patch of wheat, blue eyes watching out for the obnoxious neon pink of Octavia’s underwear peeking from the waistband of her jeans.

Lexa imagines herself in a movie right now, her wrist glowing red with her pulse, blonde hair so bright it’s like she can see every individual strand if she tries hard enough, the wheat obscuring her vision, her feet clumsy and stumbling over broken logs and holes in the ground—her chest feels so full, so heavy, that if she didn’t know any better she’d call this moment love, love for the world, love for everything to come.

When the lake comes into view, half of its edge painted with white flowers, the surface of the water mocking the moon, Lexa is reminded of the time she didn’t think she could make it in Arkadia. She had been to this lake often during the first month she had moved here, sitting by herself and watching the sun fall away like it was shot out of the sky. She had been so close to leaving, to going back home to the emptiness of her sister’s small house—a house the woman had bought for Lexa as placation for her guilt, as if a house would fill the gap left gaping by her absence. The next day brought hope in the form of Bellamy, all smolder and deep voice, introducing her to Raven and Murphy, asking if she’s any good with a chainsaw—and though the request was unsettling, the day was spent tearing apart a barn on the outskirts of town, sharing beers and stories, forming a friendship they didn’t think would come to mean so much.

Murphy is finally free from Octavia’s hold when the girl jumps off his back and climbs atop a few jagged rocks piled near the edge of the lake by a pier that has definitely seen better days.

She shouts loudly, her arms extended triumphantly in the air like she’s just won the night.

“Keep it down, O,” Bellamy says with a scowl, though the mirth in his eyes at seeing his sister so free, so present in the moment, speaks louder than his irritation. After missing her for so long, he doesn’t even care if she crawls inside his ears and screams at the top of her lungs. His remark makes Clarke smile.

“Who am I gonna bother? The fish?”

Octavia’s response makes Jasper howl with laughter. Even Murphy releases a snort of amusement.

If asked how she remembers Octavia, Lexa would say that she only ever remembers the screaming—the girl is always excited about something, even the lows in life are breathtaking because she is _alive_ and rebuilding; always smiling so loud, like her teeth are a marching band and she wants the whole world to hear her piece.

Lexa doesn’t think she wants to remember Octavia in any other way. She hopes the innocence carried isn’t shaken off over time, hopes that the world doesn’t become a habit for her.

Lexa’s wrist is still held captive by Clarke’s fingers, a warmth spreading up her arm and settling in her stomach. It’s like her body just went through the dryer, it’s like the humidity of the night is trying to reach through her pores. She is, to put it simply, content—though there is nothing simple about this life, this moment, this existence she thinks about so vehemently. And why does she give it so much thought? In the end she knows that it’s not about the thoughts she has, but what she does with them.

They all sit on the browning grass by the edge of the lake. Bellamy sits next to the pile of rocks, glancing at it every other second to make sure that his sister doesn’t fall off. Murphy is on the opposite side of the rocks, leaning his head against the cold stone and casting his usual emotionless gaze upon the water, watching it ripple and swirl—they always leave him alone, let him have his time, and wait patiently for him to return to them. Jasper is dangerously close to falling head first into the water, but Clarke wraps her arm around his shoulders when she notices, the cool breeze hitting Lexa’s warm wrist like a wake up call.

Lexa remains a few steps back, watching the moonlight hit the backs of all these people who were merely strangers months ago, who didn’t even exist months ago. There’s a smile on her face that she didn’t even realize had started to grow.

To be in the present moment, to be so aware of it, and for once not be fearful of its departure, it’s a feeling she’s always been searching for. It’s a feeling she didn’t think she’d find when she dropped everything to move to the middle of nowhere.

Clarke pushes Jasper away when he gets too handsy—as he does with a few drinks in him. He’s always forgiven the morning after. They all know he doesn’t mean any harm by it.

She wanders over to Lexa, who’s holding her bottle of beer in both palms, only a single sip away from being completely filled. She doesn’t want the night to become blurred around its edges, doesn’t want this memory to be altered in any way, just wants it all to be real.

Lexa knows when she wakes up in the morning that this night won’t be hers anymore. It will only be a thought, a time to look back on. She doesn’t even consider taking a picture, knows that a picture can never do this feeling justice. She _knows_ what the night looks like, doesn’t need proof of it—can come back every day and look at the same scenery for an eternity—but she can’t capture what it means to be alive in the landscape within a picture. She’ll never remember it as distinctly as she does now, will not remember the way that it feels to have her heart beating against the tips of her fingers.

“Maybe I am pretty good at pretending.”

Clarke is standing beside her, shoulders pressed together, looking at the backs of their friends with admiration. The tip of her nose is so _red_ and all Lexa wants to do is kiss her. It’s only been a month since they met, but it feels like there’s forever in every second when Clarke is near.

Lexa looks her over with soft eyes. She decides that she doesn’t want the night to press any harder on her chest, so she cracks a joke while garnering the courage to ask what she’s been wanting to ask all night.

“How’s about pretending to be interested in sprinkler systems with me tomorrow morning?”

Clarke turns to look at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Is Old Richard’s system still acting up?”

“How’d you figure?”

This isn’t necessarily a conversation that warrants smirking of any kind, but the two girls can’t help the smirks that arise from being so close to each other.

“Technology is always on the outs with him. I think he’s cursed.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

Clarke shakes her head, a very serious expression on her face.

“One time I was walking through town, past Pike’s Pawn shop, and I was talking on the phone, best connection I’d had all day. Suddenly, good ‘ol Richard walks by and the call disconnects. Just like that.”

Lexa holds back a snort, instead choosing to nod like it’s the most ridiculous story she’s ever heard.

“Sure, because faulty cell signal in the middle of nowhere is unheard of.”

“It’s not the middle of nowhere when you’re in it. It just becomes another town. Another town with a cursed old man haunting the streets.”

The brunette physically cannot stop her eyes from rolling. “He’s not cursed, Clarke.”

“You’ll see one day.”

Clarke pushes against Lexa’s shoulder with her own, smiling down at her feet and letting her hair cover her face, hiding her blush. Almost ten minutes of watching their friends watch the night pass by before Clarke speaks up again, her voice sounding like firewood crackling in the silence.

“I don’t always pretend. Not around you.”

Clarke’s hands are by her sides, her can of beer having been dropped earlier when she had pushed Jasper. Her pinky finger is suddenly hooked around a thinner digit.

When she looks down and sees Lexa’s hand connected to her own—even if only by one finger—she feels light. It’s the response she didn’t know she needed from Lexa—is glad the brunette just lets her words fade.

She feels, in that moment, like she understands why people fight for each other.

* * *

_now_

“ _Go_.”

“Arkadia—wait, are you _timing_ me?”

It takes Clarke a second longer than it should to answer. She slowly slides her phone from Finn’s view.

“No.”

He looks severely unimpressed.

“Why is this such a big deal again?”

Clarke leans back against the passenger seat, her hands over her eyes, exasperation wrinkling her forehead. They are stuck in traffic while driving to Finn’s apartment deeper in the city. Clarke had just finished exchanging goodbyes with Octavia—the blonde had decided a week earlier that she’s going to stay in Polis during winter break, spend some more time with Finn, spend less time worrying about going back home by avoiding it at every chance. Her mother was disappointed when she told her over the phone earlier, but a part of Clarke felt like she understood, though for what reasons she wasn’t sure.

“You’re coming to stay with me for a month, Finn. I’ve never brought someone home with me. It’s a _big_ deal.”

“Are you afraid I won’t impress?”

“I’m _afraid_ that I’ll find you tied up to the door of a barn with no clothes on.”

He looks at her like she’s lost her mind. She backtracks before he changes his mind on leaving with her at all.

“That only happened once, but that’s beside the point. The point is that you need to know everything there is to know about Arkadia. We take pride in where we’re from.”

Finn nods resolutely, shifting the index cards that Clarke had given him—every card titled with a name, details about them bulleted below—in his lap.

“Let me read through them.”

Clarke beams at this, eager to hear about her friends and family, missing them even though she’s chosen to stay away.

“Bellamy. Protective older brother. History buff. Loves shitty Bud Light. Gorgeous.”

“Raven. Witty. Stubborn. Cannot keep it in her pants. Gorgeous.”

“Abby Griffin. Big shot surgeon. Motherly intuition. Gorgeo— _Clarke_ , you can’t write gorgeous on everyone’s card.”

She looks offended by this.

“We’re a gorgeous people, Finn. We didn’t ask to be this way.”

“Do I have to keep saying gorgeous? It’s beginning to lose all meaning.”

“Of course.”

He rolls his eyes, but continues to flip through the cards.

“Murphy. Owns the pub. Easily irritable. Cares but does not show it. Gorgeous.”

“Lexa.”

He doesn’t notice the way that Clarke’s breath hitches when he says the name. She doesn’t know why she’s affected by it, she _knew_ she had written a card for her—the brunette has become an essential part of Arkadia over the years—but it still manages to surprise her.

“Enigma. Even when she’s wrong, she’s right. Thoughtful.”

He flips the card around like it’s missing something, like he expected more.

“Is Lexa not gorgeous or something?”

Clarke had hoped that he wouldn’t make a big deal about it. She had thought it weird to describe how incredible Lexa looks on a card that her current boyfriend would be reading—made her feel guilty, for some reason.

How can Clarke tell Finn that the word gorgeous doesn’t do Lexa justice? How can she even talk about Lexa without sounding like she doesn't remember anything before her?

“I guess you’ll have to find out for yourself this summer,” she says quickly, snatching the cards from his lap before he has time to sift through the rest.

“I wasn’t done!”

“Quiz time,” she says mischievously.

Her laugh is almost manic when he groans. Finn finds that he loves the sound anyway.

“Places to avoid?”

He takes a moment to think, his fingers drumming against the steering wheel.

“Pike’s Pawn shop after noon. Back alley of John’s Pub. The basement of your house.”

Clarke presses a palm to her heart.

“I’m so proud.”

* * *

“Look at you all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

Octavia rolls her eyes when Raven catches her in an embrace, saying these words loudly into the crook of her neck.

No matter how badly she tries to separate from this town there’s something that always calls her back. Even when she was going through hell during her senior year of high school all those years ago, she imagined clearly a life outside of this city, thought she could even convince everybody to come with her—she didn’t expect the task to be pointless and painful.

Every time she comes back she never wants to leave. Look how far she’s come.

“Octavia! How is Mark Antony treating you?”

She rolls her eyes even harder when Bellamy squeezes her tight, as if she had been away for years—and in his eyes, she might as well have been.

“I see you’re still a fucking weirdo,” is her response. She hugs him tightly despite her insult. She really has missed him.

“Some things never change,” says Murphy from behind them, leaning against the porch to her house like he accidentally stumbled upon her property and forgot to leave.

She smiles and pulls him into a hug that he does not reciprocate. He grunts through the entirety of it, mumbling nasty words under his breath, but she laughs despite the struggle. She knows that when it comes down to it, she’s his favorite, though she knows he’d never admit it. She’s strangely fine with that, finds that she prefers a silent love sometimes.

Jasper picks her up and flings her over his shoulder. She doesn’t know why she expected a calmer welcoming, but then again, she’s always hated the anticlimactic.

“Where’s Lexa?” She asks when her feet are firmly on the ground.

Bellamy’s soft smile turns into a slight grimace.

“She left when I told her that Clarke wasn’t coming.”

“You told her _today?_ You’ve known for a _month_ , Bell.”

He looks like he’s been beating himself up about it for a while, so she lets it go, but not before announcing that she’s going to go talk to her.

“We don’t know where she went,” Bellamy says as she walks away.

“I know where she is.”

* * *

The purple couch behind John’s Pub has seen better days.

The girl sitting on said couch has seen better days, too.

Octavia takes a seat on the opposite end, looking straight ahead where she can see the main road she just walked on. Lexa is still, no bouncing of the legs, no picking at her clothes, no twisting of the ring that Octavia notes—with a surge of happiness—sits rusted on her finger.

Lexa looks so, so _tired_. It pokes at Octavia’s heart violently.

Surprisingly enough, Lexa is the first to break the silence.

“Welcome home.”

Octavia traces the stained fabric with her finger absentmindedly.

“Feels good to be back.”

“How was the drive?”

“Long.”

She steals a glance at Lexa before responding again.

“Lonely.”

She catches the way that Lexa’s jaw tightens with the word.

They sit in silence for a bit. Octavia realizes in that moment—a few years too late, if she’s being honest—that every moment she’s ever had with Lexa has been more about the silence than the conversation. Today she knows she has to make her words count.

“She’s doing good, y’know. She’s happy.”

Lexa’s jaw continues to clench. Octavia shifts in her seat, raising her hands innocently as she speaks.

“I’ve seen her happier, but she insists she’s fine.”

She grins when she sees Lexa’s eyes soften the slightest amount.

Octavia lets the silence take control for a bit longer again. Gathers her words thoughtfully knowing that she only has one chance at this.

“I think you guys are idiots.”

She _really_ should’ve taken a few more minutes to gather her thoughts.

Lexa just snorts, her gaze still piercing the wall in front of her.

“Raven called me an idiot too.”

“Because of Clarke?”

Lexa looks at her with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m not an idiot when it comes to anything else, am I?”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

Lexa sighs, hesitation on the tip of her tongue.

“For her to forgive me.”

Octavia respects her reasoning, respects that her morals outweigh her desires. The tired tone of her voice makes her reel back, though, and Octavia decides to do good by Lexa, for once.

“She forgave you the minute she got back to Polis.”

Lexa looks reluctant to believe her.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I _know_ Clarke. The minute we got back she blasted _The Script_ and put your boxers on under her pants like I wouldn’t notice.”

Octavia gives her _the look_. The Script is one of Lexa’s favorite bands, and she knows that Clarke only started tolerating them because of her.

(“They are _so_ pretentious, Lexa.”

“I think we’re all a little pretentious when heartbroken, Clarke.”)

“I’m just saying,” Octavia continues. “You shouldn’t feel like you’ve lost her. Just give it time.”

And maybe it’s all the clouds in the usual cloudless sky, maybe it’s the fact that there is another unidentifiable stain on the couch, maybe it’s the words hitting so close to home, but Lexa feels compelled to touch the younger girl, to thank her in a way that words can’t.

She puts her hand over Octavia’s between them, her fingers folding into the smaller palm, squeezing gently.

Lexa has a long way to go before she can accept the past, but maybe now she can start to accept the future.

* * *

_then_

The summer had come and gone with a quickness Clarke wasn’t expecting—or at least, wasn’t expecting to be true.

She had spent every single day outside, every night had been a long one. She has more mosquito bites on her body than she can count, and more grass stains on her clothes than she’s capable of dealing with when she returns to Polis.

Raven had returned a few days ago, her bones practically rattling beneath her skin from all the experience she wanted to share with them all. She had sat everyone down the night she came back and told them _everything_ , every detail about the work and the sleeping arrangements and the people. Clarke had loved every second of it.

Now she stands on the Blake residence porch, watching Bellamy pick a fight with Octavia because she isn’t loading up the car correctly—and really, he just wants a reason to bicker with her, wants a reason to keep his sister around for a little bit longer.

“He’s not just transparent to me, is he?”

Lexa has been a dream. The brunette has been everything Clarke didn’t even realize she had been yearning for. They had gotten so close over the summer, physically and emotionally, sharing stories about their pasts and pressing their bodies together without much thought—cuddling and whispering and caressing and admiring.

Clarke wanted nothing more than to kiss the shit out of her. She thinks that if she doesn’t soon that she’ll explode—surely she can’t wait until she returns from Polis in the winter, surely she can’t let herself be too late.

She decides it’s now or never, no matter how nervous she is, no matter her doubts, she will taste pink today.

The brunette is standing beside her, looking at Bellamy with love, her shoulder pressed against Clarke’s like she’s trying to become a part of her.

“He hates to see her go.”

Lexa clears her throat, changes her expression like she’s trading armor, ready for war.

“I think I’m going to start becoming familiar with the feeling.”

Clarke looks at her with round eyes, weighed down by the prospect of leaving it all behind her when she feels like it’s all in its peak.

She jokes through the affectionate sentiment, as she does.

“You’ve gotten that close to O, huh?”

Lexa turns her body towards her, eyes green and serious. She’s not joking around right now and the blonde can tell.

“Clarke,” she says breathlessly, like someone has started to deflate her, her chest sinking in, her skin piling above her brow with a worry— _what if it isn’t the same months from now? what if we change?_

But Clarke doesn’t have time for doubt. She doesn’t have time for whatever it is that she may be feeling for Lexa either, but she just can’t seem to let go of it yet, at least not without experiencing it fully first.

So Clarke grabs Lexa by the wrist and leads her into the house before she can continue with her sentence. She walks into the kitchen and turns to Lexa immediately, the brunette stopping in her tracks less than a foot from her, green eyes looking down at her with a heaviness Clarke can’t keep herself away from any longer.

So she pulls Lexa in, she lets her trembling hands cup the sides of Lexa’s neck, watches as Lexa bobs her throat nervously, swallowing away her trepidation. Lexa’s hands slide around her waist, and it becomes an embrace, suddenly—not that Clarke is complaining, finds that she likes to be wrapped up in beauty. She’s about to lose her nerve as she inhales against Lexa’s neck. She was _so close_ to leaning in and finally letting their lips meet, but she lets out a surprised gasp when she feels a wet mouth kissing against her jaw, light pecks that leave goosebumps in their wake.

The way that Lexa is kissing her is nervous personified, like she’s afraid to open her eyes, take a step back and realize that she is _actually_ kissing Clarke Griffin, actually being allowed the honor.

Clarke can feel the nerves in the timid way that Lexa pulls their bodies together, their hips flush against each other, her fingers pressing into the dip of Clarke’s lower back like she wants to split her open and search for gold.

Clarke just can’t take it anymore.

“Lexa,” she gasps when the brunette bites down softly on her skin. “Kiss me.”

And then they’re kissing, and Clarke falls in love with the taste of the pink lips she had spent all summer thinking about, and Clarke starts to imagine a life without Lexa and she _can’t_ because Lexa is in everything and Clarke can live in her now.

It’s a simple peck before Lexa draws away, jaw clenched and green eyes rapidly tracing over every feature of Clarke’s face like she’s being timed, like if she doesn’t memorize quick enough then Clarke will disappear—and the tragedy proves to be true enough considering Clarke is ten minutes away from driving out of her life for months on end.

Clarke finds herself pressed up against the stove, the handle of the oven digging into her back, but she can’t bring herself to care when her lips are enveloped by Lexa’s again, hungrier this time, like she’s satisfied with the poison she’s chosen.

It doesn’t last very long. They pull apart when they hear Octavia and Bellamy walking into the house, still arguing about something or other. Clarke sucks in her lips, her cheeks impossibly flushed and her chest heaving—though it did not take her breath away in the literal sense, her heart is pumping so aggressively she’s sure she’s going to have an excess of blood in all of her limbs, can imagine herself stomping around because of all the extra weight.

Lexa doesn’t look any better off, with wet lips and wide, unfocused eyes, her hands clenching at her sides like she wanted to touch Clarke so much more than she had the chance to—and oh, how Clarke would’ve let her.

Octavia walks into the kitchen first, eyes landing on the two of them and her scowl turning into a smirk. Bellamy just looks confused, and yes, still sad, like a wet dog being repeatedly kicked in the stomach.

“Raven and the guys are waiting for us outside.”

Clarke didn’t remember the previous summer to be so difficult, didn’t remember this town being _this_ hard to leave, and though it was still exceptionally taxing, one thing had changed—last summer Lexa didn’t exist.

They step out and exchange their goodbye’s. Raven makes Clarke promise to bring her back some materials from her labs, Murphy hugs her and complains about her body heat, Jasper gives her a red rubber-band that she thought she had lost the other day, it’s a typical Arkadia sending off.

She hugs Bellamy like it’s the last time they’ll see each other, and he whispers in her ear to take it easy, to be careful, and to take care of Octavia, though he clarifies immediately after that he knows she doesn’t need protection because she’s a _Blake_. He’s a brotherly paradox and Clarke’s glad that she’s in his orbit.

She pulls Lexa into a hug before she can even look at her, before she can even think about how staying is all she’s ever wanted, before she can start questioning her decision to leave—but she remembers that nothing is ever about her in this town or in this life, and it may be her name and her body that does the work, but the outcome is never hers, always _theirs_.

She leaves because she has to, for Bellamy and for Raven and for Octavia, for her mom who worried so much for so long, even for Kane, who tried arresting all of them to make them stay. But that’s in the past, and all she wants to think about now is Lexa’s body against hers, her arms squeezing so tight that Clarke stutters with breath.

She steps back after a minute, knowing damn well that Lexa wouldn’t be the first to pull away.

“Can I call you sometime?”

“I would love that, but I don’t have a phone.”

Clarke has no response other than a snort. “Of course not.”

Lexa smiles. “Radioactivity is no joke, Clarke. And you experience everything differently when there’s not a phone in your pocket.”

“Then keep it at home, oh my _god_ ,” Raven mutters under her breath beside them, but Octavia pushes her away so the two girls can have their moment—though the thoughtful act was completely unnecessary given the fact that Clarke and Lexa were no longer present, too consumed in each other to notice anyone or anything around them.

“But I will call you,” Lexa states determinedly. “I will find a way.”

“You won’t disappoint?”

“I would never.”

* * *

“So how exactly is this phone call happening right now?”

Clarke can’t stop the excitement from taking over her tone. When her phone had started ringing an hour after she finished unpacking, an unknown number flashing across the screen, she had almost let her ringtone play through. She’s glad she didn’t.

“ _A magician doesn’t reveal their secrets, Clarke._ ”

“You’re using the payphone at the center of town, aren’t you?”

 _“Perhaps._ ”

“You could’ve just borrowed Bellamy’s cell, or Raven’s.”

After a beat, Lexa replies. Clarke’s heart clenches in her chest.

“ _It feels special this way._ ”

The blonde lays down on her bed, cradling her phone against her cheek. She closes her eyes and imagines Lexa leaning her forehead against the rusted box, holding the phone as if it were Clarke herself, the wind carrying a light sheen of dust through the town, the sky in its transition towards darkness.

She wishes so badly to be there, to reach out and casually touch Lexa during their conversation.

“ _How was the drive_?”

“It felt like watching paint dry.”

“ _Did you miss being in Polis?_ ”

“As much as I miss having a yeast infection.”

“ _That’s quite the visual._ ”

“Imagining me with a yeast infection?”

“ _Strangely enough, I am imagining Octavia with one. Why did my mind go straight to her?_ ”

“She has a very demanding presence. I’m honestly not surprised. I’ll let her know you’re thinking of her.”

“ _Please do not._ ”

Clarke looks through her window, the sun’s departure painting the sky pink.

“Open your eyes. The sky is beautiful right now.”

“ _How did you know they were closed?_ ”

“I’m excellent at reading people through the phone. It’s a gift. Now—”

“ _Wait. How many fingers am I holding up?_ ”

“Are you serious?”

“ _I’m afraid I’ve never been more serious in my life, Clarke._ ”

“One.”

There’s silence.

“ _I refuse to believe this._ ”

“Did nobody tell you I was amazing?”

“ _Nobody had to._ ”

* * *

_now_

On Christmas, Clarke receives a ridiculous amounts of photos from Bellamy.

There’s one of Raven forcefully putting a Santa hat on Murphy’s head.

There’s one of Bellamy standing in front of a mirror in a Santa costume, a full white beard taped onto his jaw, with Octavia on his back and a silly grin on both of their faces.

There’s one of her mother’s back as she’s turned towards the oven, no doubt baking her famous cookies. Raven is in the background of the photo, sitting on the countertop and cradling a mug of hot chocolate in her hand, grinning toward the camera like she’s five years old and doesn’t know about suffering.

There’s one of Jasper dramatically sticking his hand out from underneath a mountain of gifts, his face caught mid-scream.

There’s one of Bellamy and Francis with reindeer antlers on, both with smiles on their faces—because if there was anyone in the world who could make animals smile, it’s Bellamy.

There are none of Lexa.

* * *

_then_

Being away this year wasn’t as difficult as she thought it’d be.

Between the growing intensity of her classes, Octavia’s wild presence, and Lexa’s consistent phone calls, the months flew by like they were in a hurry.

Arkadia during the winter is a sight to see. Everyone is wrapped in their coats, with hats on their heads and the tips of their noses red—it’s beauty within beauty.

Clarke had walked into her house on her first day back with a smile on her face that was ready to split her in half. She didn’t expect Lexa to be asleep on her couch, waiting for her to arrive, bundled under a blanket with two pairs of socks on her feet. The blonde had jumped on her without thinking twice about it, so excited to see the brunette after all that time away.

They didn’t talk about much those first few hours, didn’t talk about the kiss that they had shared that summer, didn’t talk about the tension behind every phone call, they just held on to each other and let their bodies do all the talking.

That’s how Raven had found them, cuddled up on the couch with silly grins on their faces to match.

Right now, however, Clarke isn’t feeling half as good as she did when she first got home.

She wakes up with a low groan stuck to her throat, her tongue heavy and eyes on fire. The light coming through the scattered holes on the wall of the barn only serve to make her headache worse.

She sits up and tries to rid her hair of grass and hay, but the effort proves pointless after a few minutes, so she squints tiredly and tries to remember the events of the night before.

There was a lot of drinking, _obviously_. She remembers faint snippets of Bellamy arguing that Bud Light is _amazing_ , if not the _best_ , beer on the market. She remembers Raven telling him that he has absolutely no taste and no class, remembers Octavia laughing so loudly that she startled some stray chickens that were hiding behind one of the walls, remembers Murphy smiling as Jasper bled from the nose after tripping over a spare tire.

She remembers Lexa kissing her so gently, dragging her away from the group to press her up against the side of the barn, and she feels for a moment like she didn’t deserve that tenderness.

“Stop thinking so loud, princess. Give yourself a stroke,” says a deep voice to her right. She turns to find Bellamy’s warm brown eyes regarding her with a slight smile that looks more nauseated than anything.

She rubs at her forehead. “I think I’ll get one regardless, at this rate.”

He chuckles once, wincing at the uncomfortable sensation. “Never did know when to stop.”

He looks at her like he knows more than he lets on, and he does, he always does.

The barn door suddenly opens, the light blinding.

“You guys look well and thoroughly fucked,” Lexa says from where she leans against the wooden door, a gentle grin on her refreshed face, clearly not struggling with a hangover like the rest of them. She’s not much of a drinker, never has been.

Raven groans loudly. “Fuck off.  _Thoroughly_ fuck off.”

Lexa only laughs, her smile softening when her eyes land on Clarke.

She looks angelic, with the sun illuminating the outline of her body and creating a golden hue that makes the blonde feel entirely unworthy and entirely too lucky. Clarke, for a moment, has her breath taken away by this incredible woman. This incredible woman who had grabbed at her waist and squeezed as she licked at the inside of Clarke’s eager mouth less than ten hours ago.

“Uncle Teddy is riding on his horse through town again. He parked it like a car outside of the barber, guys. We _have_ to go get it!” announces a very enthusiastic Jasper as he appears next to Lexa, gauze wrapped around his purple nose, his voice slurred by the medicine he must have taken to ease the pain.

Raven continues to groan at the loud voices but manages to grin through the agony.

“I’ve always loved a good felony.”

Bellamy nods along. “Would be nice to see Officer Kane again. Been a while.”

Jasper jumps in place and offers Lexa a high five, his hand ignored by the girl who’s too busy looking at Clarke to notice.

Jasper pouts. Raven curses. Bellamy pokes at Octavia until she wakes up from her sleep.

All in all, it’s a Christmas present Clarke never wants to stop unwrapping.

* * *

After Raven drives everyone to their homes to shower and rid themselves of the stink of their late night antics, they finally arrive at the barbershop. They’ve decided to send Bellamy in as a distraction, seeing as Uncle Teddy really enjoys their shared interest in all things Greek—salads, history, mythology, etc. Murphy is on his post by the entrance to the shop, his hands folded in front of him, looking from side to side like he’s sweeping the sidewalk.

There are a few locals stumbling through the streets at this early hour, but none of them are particularly interested in the horde of adolescents congregating by a ridiculously tall mammal.

Raven is staring up at the animal, contemplating her next move. Murphy sends them a discreet nod. Octavia kneels and ready’s her hands for Raven to step on, the girl too short to be able to climb up the horse on her own.

Clarke merely stands to the side, happy to be a part of her friends ridiculous ideas without _actually_ being a part of them. She stands next to an equally amused Lexa, letting their bare arms graze against each other every few seconds before she finally presses their shoulders together, turning to address the green eyes that are already looking at her.

“Ever stolen a horse before?”

Lexa’s response never comes because all hell decides to break loose. Raven manages to mount the horse and drag Octavia up with her, the animal galloping down the sidewalk when Uncle Teddy comes out of the store in a frenzy, Bellamy hot on his tracks. Murphy is nowhere in sight and Jasper has taken to walking along the middle of the street and whistling under his breath like he’s an innocent man.

Clarke decides this is as good a time as any to ditch the heist.

The blonde grabs Lexa’s hand and intertwines their fingers, tugging her down the sidewalk, away from the horse and the shouting and the accusations.

They circle John’s Pub, walk past the pawn shop, and end up in the back alley littered with broken stools, broken bottles, and a surprisingly comfortable looking purple couch—with only, Lexa counts them,  _four_ questionable stains.

Clarke sits on it like it’s a habit, and Lexa has no choice but to sit beside her, their bodies pressed together but their eyes focused solely on the alley in front of them that leads to the street through a narrow opening.

Lexa is so close to Clarke that all she’d have to do is turn her head to the left and her lips would be enveloped by soft ones again, the memory of that mouth sucking on hers still fresh on her mind.

“Yes.”

Clarke looks at Lexa’s profile questioningly, all tight jaw muscles and ridiculous cheekbones. She can already feel her eyes drooping seductively, her lips drying with anticipation.

The brunette meets her eyes then, and Clarke summons everything within her being to not lean forward press her lips against the inviting pink ones in front of her.

Lexa smirks.

“I have stolen a horse before.”

Clarke doesn’t know why that does it, but it _does_ , and she’s hooking her leg over Lexa’s lap and straddling the girl, her hands crawling up a delicate collarbone and pulling lightly at the curves of her neck, lips sliding wet and warm across soft ones.

It’s been about half a day since they’ve last kissed, maybe less, but Clarke doesn’t understand why she feels like she’s been waiting a lifetime for this.

She’s always laughed at those hopeless romantic types that claim that they’ve always missed a love they’ve never had—mocked them, ridiculed them, made a girl in her high school cry because she said she was in love with her boyfriend of a week. But sitting in Lexa’s lap, feeling Lexa’s slender fingers gripping at her hips and digging into the flesh one digit at a time like her body is a harp manifesting beauty as a sound, well, she’s in love.

She refrains from scoffing into Lexa’s beautiful, warm mouth, and only kisses her harder, nipping at her lip and relishing in the tiny mewl at the back of the brunette’s throat that she so obviously tries to swallow.

Lexa rips away from her suddenly, and Clarke outright _moans_ when she finds herself on her back, Lexa looking down at her from between her legs before she kisses down her jaw, down her neck, and latches onto her collarbone like it’s an anchor and she’s _drowning_.

“You’re divine, Clarke,” she kisses these words into the blonde’s neck, and they would’ve faded into the silence if she wasn’t _so damn close_.

Clarke nods, her eyes shut tightly and hands gripping at Lexa’s back, pulling her closer until she doesn’t know where she ends and Lexa begins. She feels her heartbeat straining against her neck, trying to claw its way out of her throat, all bloody and raw and pure.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she chooses to say instead of _so are you_ or _I’ve never taken things so slow before_ or _I can’t already love you_.

Because, surely, letting any of those slip just wouldn’t end well; not when she’s known Lexa for six months—and spent only two of them _actually_ with her.

She lets the words out in the form of a whine when Lexa bites down particularly hard on her lip.

Maybe the bruise left behind will say all she’s afraid to.

* * *

Winter break proceeds in the same way.

They all gather together at night, drink and talk and joke and sing and pass out, wake up to do some work, and repeat.

They decide to switch it up at the end of the year.

On New Year’s Eve they all decide to go a county over to party at a club that they like to frequent once a year, on a special occasion—more specifically: when they feel like pissing off the assholes that live in Azgeda County.

The night starts out innocently enough. Raven and the Blake siblings are well behaved by the bar, ordering drinks and actually chatting up the patrons who are too drunk to recognize their sly smirks and quick wit. It’s pretty late into the night already, only about an hour until the ball drops in New York City, an hour until this year is no longer with them. Clarke had many ideas about how this night would go, she knew she wanted to be all over Lexa for the majority of it, and that idea had been executed quickly and exceptionally. They haven’t taken their hands off each other since they got on the dance floor, since they were enveloped by bodies and lights and sound—knees brushing against knees, hands on thighs and on dips of backs, hips almost fused together at a point. They don’t kiss; it’s just something about the tension before their lips meet that makes the absence of the act so much more enjoyable.

They don’t kiss until the need becomes too much, almost like they’d die without it. They wait until they’re just on the brink of suffocation from their desire. While they dance, the moment is reserved for admiration with hooded eyes and parted lips, short of breath by how beautiful they look, pressed together under the neon lights, flashing in tune with the song, the bass a second heartbeat.

Lexa wants to say many things to Clarke, wants to tell her that she’s the most beautiful girl she’s ever seen. She’s sure the way that she’s kissed the blonde in the past has led Clarke to believe this fact to be true, but there’s just something about declarations with Lexa that really shows how much a person matters to her. Clarke is it. Clarke is her person, and she’d be damned if she didn’t let her know in one way or another, but she stays silent for now—let's her body speak for her and say the words she’s just not ready to say yet.

Clarke really is stunning, her skin glistening with a sheen of sweat, red and glowing. Right now she has her arms around Lexa’s shoulders, her nails lightly scratching against the hair at the nape of the brunette’s neck. Lexa’s hands are gripping at her waist, the tips of her fingers methodically pressing against her skin through the slit of her dress, as if she were gently kneading dough—Lexa makes her taste angelic. She feels like they’re not even moving at this point, the new year quickly approaching as they stand among the masses, quickly becoming theirs among the noise.

Lexa is somewhere far off, talking to Clarke over cups of coffee on a dining table that they worked hard to build together—maybe Clarke even made it from scratch. There’s not a single bone in the blonde’s body that’s not an artist’s bone, it’s likely the table is carved from her own calcium. Lexa sips from her mug but it’s a bit too hot, she winces, she burns her tongue; so, Clarke leans over the table, poking at her sides until her mouth widens into a smile and releases her tongue from captivity, all so she can kiss at the burn and tend to her wound like the selfless person that she is. It’s all the medicine Lexa will ever need.

In the present moment, all Lexa feels is that burn on the tip of her tongue, scalding under the weight of the hot iron words that she’s desperate to make known—doesn’t even consider what the words would be, but she knows that language is not a mediocre invention, so there must be a sentence she can formulate to express the emotion she currently feels. She’s hot and bothered and five seconds away from pushing Clarke into a corner and ravishing her. Thankfully, Clarke beats her to it, intertwines their fingers and leads them to the bathroom.

There’s nobody present to interrupt them, despite one of the two stalls being occupied, they carry forward and lock themselves behind the red door. Clarke pushes her up against the stall wall and kisses her neck like she’s been thinking about this all night, and Lexa knows that she has, can tell by the way her blue eyes would dip down every time she talked to her, whispered words into her ear and leaned forward so her shirt collar would slide just right over her clavicle, revealing her bones to Clarke like they’re a treasure, like she wouldn’t rip them from their joints to start a fire that would keep Clarke warm if she was ever even slightly cold. All Lexa does is let this happen to her, let Clarke happen to her. If she were being a bit more cautious with her heart she would push the blonde back; tell her that they’re moving too fast; like three kisses, longing glances, and cryptic words that never seem to quite say exactly what they mean is moving _too fast_. Matters of the heart progress differently for the people involved in them. Their story is backwards, but it doesn’t make it any less of a story.

She finds that letting Clarke take the wheel is as exhilarating as pressing the foot on the gas pedal herself, watching the meter slide past a hundred, past two hundred—there are an indefinite number of miles that Lexa would let herself be driven through with Clarke, if only she would put the keys in the ignition, if only she would take them out of her pocket. She’s only ever wanted to be along for the ride.

Clarke kisses her neck and takes her time kissing alongside her jaw; Lexa knows how much the blonde likes the sharp edges of her face. Clarke knows that no matter how sharp Lexa is she could never get cut by her, finds Lexa too soft beneath the exterior to ever do her any harm. If anything, Clarke’s just waiting for the bomb within her own body to go off, for the debris to separate them. Lexa’s knife is sharpened to the point of making itself bleed, but her handle is so, so soft; and the brunette would turn it all around and grasp the cutting edge just so Clarke wouldn’t feel any pain, would let her palm bleed so Clarke can know softness.

Lexa’s had about enough of the tension after what feels like an eternity of being honored in this stall, can hear some people in the hall outside of the bathroom chattering excitedly, just waiting for the year to end. She places her hands on Clarke’s cheeks and looks in her eyes—for a moment thinks about the coffee and the table and the hope that she feels that one day they’ll get there. A moment later she’s letting their mouths meet, sucking Clarke’s bottom lip into her mouth and thanking god that every decision she’s ever made in her life has led her here. She thanks the lackluster childhood, the flighty parents, thanks her once broken heart for finding a way to mend, finding its way back into the crevice of her body where the emptiness once laid to rest—a hole that’s starting to bend into the shape of Clarke’s smile, her heartbeat sounding less and less hollow every time the blonde so much as hums under her breath.

Their kiss starts off slow, and it only escalates when Clarke pushes against Lexa’s body, hands urgently pressed against her shoulders, one step forward is all it takes for the back of Lexa’s knees to meet the clean porcelain of the toilet. She falls backwards onto the closed lid, fearing for a moment that she would fall through and be flushed.

They separate momentarily, Clarke looking down at Lexa with pupils blown wide, red cheeks that never seem to ripen, and a curve to her lips that makes Lexa want to roll her eyes into the back of her head. Lexa isn’t quite ready for her—doesn’t think she ever will be—but she grabs at the back of Clarke’s thighs regardless, brings her forward, let’s Clarke straddle her, her hands going back to Lexa’s shoulders and sliding around to the nape of her neck, tangling in her hair and maintaining the type of eye contact that melts.

Lexa almost swallows her tongue when Clarke starts moving against her, her center barely an inch from reach, their bodies only separated by a flimsy set of underwear beneath her dress and Lexa’s jeans. Without thinking twice about it, their lips meet again, hungrier than before, so much more fuel in the fire now that Clarke has decided to take it farther than they have ever gone.

Lexa doesn’t know where to begin, doesn’t know where to place her hands because any contact at this point will never feel like enough. Her heart is pounding in her throat so ferociously that she fears she’ll throw it up, and what a damper that would put on their mood—her regurgitated love all over the bathroom floor as the object of her affection grinds against her and massages her scalp like the multitasker she is. Lexa decides that she won’t let her overwhelming affection get in the way of enjoying this moment, and so she places her hands high on Clarke’s thighs, the blonde’s dress bunched at her waist. She softly grips at the skin, content with every inch of Clarke’s body, happy to have so much of it to explore and memorize and purposefully forget just so she can enjoy memorizing it again. She slides her hands up, her palms pressing against where Clarke’s thighs meet her hips, and she splays her fingers across her waist, her right hand squeezing as her left hand tries to memorize curves—thumb stroking soft skin and circling her belly button, pinky grazing the material of her underwear and teasingly dipping just underneath. 

She has her eyes clenched shut, sees stars behind her eyelids, and she’s inclined to believe that opening them would reveal this all to be a dream. But they burst open when Clarke untangles her fingers from her hair and grips at the hem of her dress, swiping it off quickly—Lexa momentarily mesmerized by the way blonde waves cascade from underneath the material and down her shoulders like the sun was an ocean that had had enough of living in a circle and found a better plain to place its light. She can’t seem to touch enough skin, then—lips on lips, fingertips tracing the strap of a bra, palms pressing against shoulder blades so her life lines will become familiar with what holds her future love together. Clarke clenches her thighs against Lexa’s hips, her dress laying forgotten on the bathroom floor—they would have considered it unbelievably unsanitary if they weren’t so swept up in their supermarket erotica novel moment.

It’s really a story for the books when there are no words to express the moment, only actions, only heartbeats.

At this point Clarke doesn’t care that their first kiss happened months ago or that they were separated for months afterwards—doesn’t even care when she thinks back to the way her mind told her to take it slow, because hasn’t she taken it slow enough?

All that matters is that they’re here right now, sharing this moment like it’s the last moment they’ll ever have together—and maybe it is. Life always seems to give something good before the bad, a crown before the poisoned chalice.

All that matters to Lexa right now is the good.  _Clarke_.

“You don’t know what you do to me,” it’s whispered into a pale chest, near a pale heart, Lexa’s mouth trying to devour the tops of pale breasts.

The most wonderful discovery Clarke has ever made: Lexa is a sloppy lover.

Before today, they had only ever kissed a handful of times, but even then, when tensions rose and the heat of their bodies pressed together could ignite a forest fire; well, Lexa got hungry. Within her hunger comes an urgent desire to consume too much too quickly, not that Clarke is complaining—Lexa’s urgency to touch her body is the type of desperation Clarke didn’t know she craved. Lexa’s lips were always wet, her tongue always eager, her eyes always shut tightly like she needs all the concentration she can muster. Clarke has never been touched the way that Lexa touches her.

Right now—with Lexa’s beautifully delicate hands gripping at the skin of Clarke’s hips, digits pressing into flesh like if she touched her any gentler she’d fall further in a dream—Clarke feels cherished.

She knows that she’s beautiful, but to be worshipped like this? it’s something she feels she’ll never deserve, no matter how much good she does.

Lexa makes this noise in the back of her throat suddenly, something between a whimper and a whine, something so raw Clarke wonders momentarily if the girl’s choking on diamonds. But she doesn’t have much time to dwell on the beautiful symphony within Lexa’s mouth because her chest is exposed, her bra falling between them into Lexa’s lap, the brunette having unclipped it without her realizing. Lexa is looking at her like a child looks at a ladybug, with so much wonder, such unadulterated innocence, that it prompts Clarke to want to ask if Lexa’s ever done this before, ever been so close to a woman. But her question gets answered soon enough when one of her nipples is enveloped in heat, a soft hand gripping onto her chest delicately, like she’s a piece of fine china that needs one last coat of paint before going on display. She’s never wanted to be so shattered in her life with the way that Lexa appreciates her, all tongue and slick kisses and wandering hands. She lets her head fall against the top of the brunette’s, buries her nose into brown hair and inhales the scent of a night of dancing, a night of drinking, the scent of hair that’s travelled eighty miles an hour in the backseat of a car, flowing with the wind that the hills produce so well.

The club is alive behind them, and Clarke hears the countdown begin, starting so eagerly at fifty-nine. There’s a banging against their stall door again, another impatient woman, probably drunk, probably just trying to piss away the end of the year. They pay no mind to anything, only to each other.

Lexa’s wet kisses slow down now as she hears the collection of voices, hears the drunken shouting— _1_ _5, 14, 13, 12_.

She slides her hands to Clarke’s back, her fingers tracing their path as they go, and she wraps Clarke in a warm embrace. She buries her face in the blonde’s chest and inhales the sweat, the lavender perfume, the skin. Clarke wraps her arms around tan shoulders, holding Lexa just as tightly, suddenly overwhelmed by the sudden change of pace, by the sudden onslaught of emotions that were previously lust. The weight on her chest is making it hard to breathe, the silence within the bathroom deafening, the celebration so distant now that she really strains to hear it. Had everything sounded so distant because of their intensity? Had everyone sounded so far away because of the heart-shaped jars she had been holding over her ears?

They both keep their eyes closed, listening to the end of the year pass them by, just the two of them surrounded by red, sitting one atop the other, their hearts perfectly aligned.

When all the cheering begins, the music cut off for a moment to celebrate with only voices, Clarke’s skin erupts in goosebumps when words are whispered into the fold of her body.

“Happy New Year, Clarke.”

The blonde smiles and hums, the sound making Lexa look up at her with rounded green eyes, her expression honey personified.

“Any resolutions?”

Lexa playfully nudges the tip of Clarke’s chin with her nose. “Was thinking about trying abstinence this year, heard it works wonders.”

Clarke smirks, her teeth peeking through just the right amount to be considered charming.

“If you’re looking for my support you won’t find it,” she says this as Lexa’s fingers start creeping up her thigh.

“Pretty sure I’m looking for something else,” comes the husky reply—Clarke positive at this point that Lexa’s reply won’t be the only thing coming.

They say that your year plays out a lot like how you start it. Clarke doesn’t know who _they_ are, but she hopes that they’re right, because being wrapped up around Lexa like this, being able to go so quickly from wanting to fuck each other’s brains out to a simple emotional embrace and back again, well, it’s about the best disorientation she’s ever felt.

And as they ride back in Bellamy’s truck—Octavia passed out in the passenger seat; Raven on the bed in the back, looking up at the stars with eyes glazed over, the wind refreshing for her tired limbs—Clarke looks at the shadows cast on Lexa’s face as the moon tries to be a better version of itself. She’d like to believe that the new year brought resolutions for the universe too, a resolution to take it a little easier on the smaller guys.

The song on the radio—coupled with the look of serenity on Lexa’s face and the memory of the night—makes tears prick at the corner of Clarke’s eyes. She rarely gets emotional like this—prompted by nothing—but tonight has caused a shift in her being she didn’t believe possible. Lexa is certainly not like anything she’s ever experienced in her life, and with their hands intertwined in the brunette’s lap, her wrist being caressed by the girl’s free hand, Clarke leans forward to express her disbelief.

“You can’t be real.” It’s trite and corny and definitely not what Clarke wanted to say—figured the words that were going to come out of her mouth were _don’t ever leave_.

Lexa turns to look at her, green eyes grey under the blanket of darkness, only visible to Clarke because of their proximity. She steals a quick peek at parted lips before sliding her vision back to drown in the blue. She leans her forehead against Clarke’s, closes her eyes, and forces the content sigh down her throat.

It’s been a hell of a night, a hell of a life, a hell of a price to pay for a happiness she knows she’ll never feel again. She wishes she could soak in this moment and never quite be dry of it.

“I’m glad I am.”

* * *

_now_

Clarke doesn’t know why they’re all laughing, she _definitely_ didn’t get the joke, but she laughs along with them so her first impression isn’t a complete shitshow.

She decided to go with Finn to a New Year’s Eve party he was invited to, was told that this would be her chance to meet some of his friends, was told to act normal.

There is nothing normal about these people.

She thinks that maybe it’s her, maybe it’s something about who she is and where she comes from, because she can’t for the life of her see herself getting along with these people—and by _these people_ she means clusterfucks of sweater vests all collectively breathing over the same keg of beer, talking about _customer service in the medical industry_ and actually enjoying it.

She wants to stick a pen in her eye. She starts staring longingly at the hook of a pen latched onto the collar of one of the sweater vests, but then Finn is beside her, all long hair and soft smile, and she directs her attention to him.

“Are you having fun?” He asks, and he seems like he’s really in his element, so she’s going to lie and say that she is, but her phone starts ringing in her back pocket loudly, like it knows she needs help, so she excuses herself and steps onto the empty back porch.

When she notices the familiar number she braces herself, her heart suddenly trying to pound its way out of her chest, her lungs feeling like they just can’t take in enough air.

“Hello?”

There’s a tense silence that follows. She tries again.

“Hello?”

She bites her lip and looks down at her feet. She chose these red heels because she thought they would impress. Right now that seems like a lifetime ago. Right now it doesn’t even matter.

She wills her voice not to crack when she tries a third time.

“Lexa?”

She hasn’t heard the girl’s voice in months. She hasn’t been called in _months_. She almost doesn’t believe it to be true.

“ _Happy New Year, Clarke_.”

That’s when she hears all the noise, all the cheering and all the voices, the beeping from an incoming call on her phone—it’s Finn and he’s looking for her, trying to welcome the new year in with her, to kiss her and drink champagne with her. She lets his call ring through and walks away from the back door, out of view from whoever tries to find her. She sits on a beach chair in a dim corner, looking up at the stars and wondering if Lexa is doing the same.

Clarke doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t even know where to _begin_ , but then a wet chuckle is escaping her lips and she’s talking before she realizes what she’s saying.

“Any resolutions?”

Lexa laughs something wet and breathless too, like she’s on the brink of crying but won’t allow herself to.

There’s not a day that goes by that Clarke doesn’t spend thinking about Lexa, about what she’s doing or who she’s with or what she’s wearing; but it all feels a bit more real now that she’s connected to her somehow, like her presence isn’t just a fragment of Clarke’s imagination.

“ _I have a few._ ”

Lexa sighs into the phone—a gust of wind that Clarke feels down her spine—before she continues speaking. Her voice comes out in a whisper, broken and wavering.

“ _Are they like wishes? If I tell you will they not come true?_ ”

Clarke’s breath hitches. Lexa sounds so vulnerable, so _young_. It scares Clarke enough to make her steer the conversation away from something they are entirely too unprepared to bring up.

“I can tell you mine, if you want. They’re pretty basic.”

Lexa takes the bait, helping to shift the topic before she gets in over her head too.

“ _Is one of them exercise more? Because that is the most basic._ ”

“Yes, actually. Losing some weight wouldn’t be so bad.”

Lexa snorts. “ _Okay._ ”

“What?”

“ _Like you need to lose weight._ ”

“Hey, you haven’t seen me in a while. I could look like a hippo for all you know.”

“ _You’d still put everyone to shame, Clarke_.”

Even after all these years, after the endless compliments and longing looks, the endless showering of affection, Clarke blushes scarlet and rubs her palm against her cheek to soothe the warmth.

“ _There_ you are! I’ve been looking for you.”

Finn really does have impeccable timing.

“You found me,” Clarke says half-heartedly.

“ _I think I should go._ ”

Clarke quickly turns away from an expectant Finn, for a moment wishing that it was just her and Lexa and the stars.

“No, don’t. Just give me a second.”

“ _We both know I should_.”

Clarke sighs, all the fight in her suddenly drained.

“Happy New Year, Lexa.”

“ _Goodbye, Clarke._ ”

She wonders if this is how the rest of her year will be.

As she follows Finn back inside and plasters a smile on her face, she hopes that they’re wrong when they say that you start the year how you’re going to live it.

She can’t live far away from home, far away from Bellamy and Raven and her mom, far away from the dust of the hills that she’s sure makes her bones creak with every step.

She can’t live if every word with Lexa will be in parting.

She can’t live in goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my inspiration:
> 
> we are nowhere and it's now by bright eyes
> 
> raging by kygo
> 
> i'll be good by jaymes young
> 
> bonus:
> 
> club song—something about you by majid jordan
> 
> car song—lullaby by shawn mullins (the theme song of this piece, really)


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